For You, Anything
by parismylove
Summary: Edward is an actor filming in Forks where he meets Bella. Their worlds are different, but when they're together, they are just Edward and just Bella. Can they survive when their pasts come back to haunt them? Rated M Angst/Language/Violence/Lemons
1. Chapter 1 Words and Paper

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Will things always stay this easy?  
**

**The first few chapters are an introduction to the main and supporting characters.**

**Rated M for: Angst, language, violence and lemony goodness...eventually.**

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**I've made my own playlist to go along with the story, so just hit play when the song is mentioned to get a full experience.**

**http://www (dot) playlist (dot) com/playlist/18746192139**

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**CHAPTER ONE**

**Words and Paper**

_Could this get any worse? Yes, sadly it could._

Still, this isn't what I signed up for. I just want to act. I just want to inspire. I just want to entertain. This was getting out of hand.

I made a hard stop and turned around. Twenty-seven girls. I wouldn't have guessed that many people lived in this town.

"Will you sign this?" a young girl begged.

"Will you marry me?" another asked.

"I love you!" the others screamed.

It was time to plead. "Please, if you will leave me in peace, I will sign whatever you want – _NO, NOT THAT!_" Throwing my hands up motioning her to stop, I had to revise my statement immediately as a girl, no older than 15, started lifting her shirt to expose her breasts. _God, what makes this acceptable these days?_

I started signing books, photos, shirts, you name it. Looking up from the items I was signing, I noticed these girls weren't leaving, and if I wasn't mistaken, their numbers were growing. _Stupid cell phones. _My mug was probably plastered on 20 Facebook pages already.

To try to distract my mind from the pain in my hand and my desire to curl into the fetal position, my eyes meandered around to the shops in front of me. It was quaint. If you were looking for a postcard from small-town America, this would be the place to set up your camera.

There were seven shops on this side of the block, all connected like row-houses. Each had large windows and three steps leading to their doors. A doctor's office. A lighting store. A shop that sold bath oils and soaps. A video store. A photography studio. A clothing store. And, directly in front of me a bookstore named Words and Paper. I made a mental note to find this block again and check it out. I was in desperate need of new literature.

The shrieks snapped me back to my current, undesirable state. There were at least fifty girls screaming they loved me now, and all it took was one shove at the back of the herd to send me and everyone else into a frenzied panic. Bodies were set in motion like dominoes and hands flew up so that they could catch their balance on the person in front of them.

Good God, I wasn't going to get out of this alive. Hopefully my family knew I loved them.

From out of nowhere, I heard a piercing holler, and the chain reaction stopped.

"Get the _hell_ off my stoop! You're blocking my customers! I will call the police if you're not gone in 12.3 seconds and have you _all_ arrested for loitering!"

I stood there stunned. The owner from the bookstore had left the comfortable confines of her words and paper and was making it clear that we were not welcome on her block any longer. It took approximately 8.7 seconds for the crowd to head down the block. She obviously meant business.

The angry woman and I stood there staring at each other. Her long hair whipped in the wind, and her gaze was assertive as if she was challenging me to not follow her orders. She didn't seem to know who I was, and for that I was grateful.

I looked down at the ground immediately, scared to look any longer at the deep brown, animated eyes of the exasperated woman in front of me. I nodded, and as I turned to walk away, she cleared her throat. The sound made me pull my head up to see she was jerking it toward her shop, silently telling me to come inside. _Shit. _Maybe she put my face with a name.

I looked at her for what seemed like forever, unmoving. Did I trust this woman not to attack me and call her friends? If she got me inside, would I be able to leave? Did she have a torture chamber hidden in the basement? _Jesus, she's gorgeous._

She spoke warmly, snapping me out of my thoughts. "We've only known each other for a minute, Mr. Cullen, and I know there is no reason to trust me, but I'm only one girl compared to the fifty or so that have stationed themselves down at the stop sign waiting for you to rejoin them."

It didn't go unnoticed that she did in fact know who I was. Looking down at the street corner, I saw that the wolves had all regained forces and had ravenous, hungry eyes directed at me. That's all it took. One girl wouldn't harm me, especially one this small. So, I took a chance and bound toward her open door. Torture chamber, be damned.

The second I closed the door behind me, I was pleasantly assaulted with the smell of leather, old paper and ink. My eyes adjusted to the lighting, and I couldn't help but get giddy at the sight before me.

Fifteen foot bookshelves graced the perimeter walls with ladders to the top. Strings of exposed light bulbs and an amazing exposed light bulb chandelier that was at least ten feet wide hung from the ceiling. I stepped forward on the old, creaky wood floorboards and glanced at the books that occupied the smaller shelves in front of me. In the back I could see a small raised area with brightly-colored children's books. Large mismatched sofas and chairs dotted the remaining space. I could spend all day here.

Another clearing of her throat interrupted my thoughts and excitement.

"So, what brings you to this part of the country?" she asked, like a member of the welcome wagon. She was stacking papers at the cash register, not paying a whole lot of attention to me.

"Ummm... I'm here meeting with someone about an upcoming job." I kept my eyes wandering, trying to take in everything around me.

"A movie?"

"Yeah, a movie." I'm forced to be a little short with her on this because I'm not really supposed to release information.

"Why Forks, Washington, for a meeting? Seems to be a little far away from Los Angeles."

"Well... they are wanting to film here. Something about capturing real small-town life. The producer was here once, and it always stuck with him."

She simply nodded her head. I watched as she picked up her business phone and dialed a number. My body tensed in anticipation for her to tell her friends that I was here.

"Alice, my dear! Can I ask a favor of you? Can you go take a gander outside your front window and see if there happens to be a gaggle of young women still afoot?" She giggled lightly, obviously at her choice of words, and then paused while I assumed Alice walked to the front of her store. This friend of hers must work at the clothing store at the end of the block.

"That's what I figured," she continued. "Oh, no. I have no idea why they are out there. They must have thought they saw someone. I ran them off my front stoop about five minutes ago. I know. Yeah, it's odd. They all got scared when I told them I'd have the police arrest them for loitering...I know! He would only be able to fine them if anything. Well, hey, I'm going to close up shop a little early today. I wanted to make sure we were still on for tonight?... Wonderful. I can't wait to go out. It's been too long... I love you, too. See ya at nine."

She hung up the phone.

"I guess they are still down there," I stated, already sure of her answer.

"You guess right," she said.

"Well, I want to thank you for the reprieve at least for the last few minutes. I'll go feed myself to the wolves again."

"Whoa! Wait a second, Mr. Cullen!" she blurted out, taking a step around her counter. Her finger was waving in the air. "I'm not allowing you to go out there and get involved in that again. It would take a couple of seconds for them to rush you, and I don't want you to sue me for damage done on my property." She finished with a small smirk.

"Okay, then what do you propose to get me out of here without a lawsuit?" I asked, leaning toward her on the chair back in front of me.

"I have a secret passageway reserved just for moments like this," she whispered, as though she was trying to keep the secret from listening ears.

I stared at her, wide-eyed, completely befuddled. "A secret passageway?" I couldn't help but whisper back. It only seemed appropriate.

"Yes," she declared, with a head nod. "The back door." And, then she laughed at my expression.

"Just turn the open sign around for me while I finish this, if you would sir," she said, walking back around to her cash register. "And, secure the three locks. If you don't mind, could you flip the left five light switches leaving the right one on? Thanks."

I did everything as she asked and turned around to notice the chandelier was still lit, casting a soft golden hue into the room. For it's size, it didn't give off much light, though. I wanted one of those for my apartment.

I stepped aside as she led me toward the back, and as we got to the small hallway, she reached her hand back and grabbed mine before slowly opening the door and peeking her head out. I was stunned by her gesture, but I don't pull away because she wasn't a harm. Maybe she was doing it to calm me, or just maybe she needed to feel protected from the throng of girls outside her store. I'd protect her any day.

"The coast is clear," she whispered. This time, her hushed voice seemed completely necessary. We were on a secret mission through her secret passageway.

She hit the button on her key chain and a vehicle came to life in front of me. _Excellent._ A bronze Volvo XC60... with _tinted windows_. Praise the Lord! She dashed out, releasing my hand and jumped in the driver's seat without hesitation. Taking her lead, I ran to the passenger side and flung myself into the seat, slamming the door behind me.

"Why are we running? There isn't anyone back here!" I laughed.

"That was fun. I felt like a teenager trying to sneak out of my dad's house again. There's not much around here that's a lot of fun, Mr. Cullen. I take what I can get."

"Please stop calling me Mr. Cullen," I said. It felt too formal coming from someone like her, though I was called Mr. Cullen by most everyone in the business. "Just Edward, please."

"Okay, Just Edward, where am I taking you?" she smiled. "I'll drop you off wherever you were headed."

"Ummm... I'm staying at The Ephraim Hotel. Are you sure you don't mind? I could call my driver to get me." My hand had already started pulling out my phone.

"Pfffft, it's not a problem at all. It's actually on my way home," she assured me. "Just let me do this for you, okay?"

She backed us out of the parking space, and we headed out in the opposite direction to avoid my adoring fans before she turned herself around and made her way toward the hotel. We sat in relative quiet until she turned up the volume on her CD.

_Do you remember when we used to sing_

_Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da_

"Do you like Van Morrison?" I questioned her, slightly excited to be listening to my all-time favorite artist.

"Who doesn't? Wild Night? Someone Like You? Have I Told You Lately? And, of course, Brown Eyed Girl?" She pointed at the stereo, indicating that it was playing. "This is my personal favorite. My dad and I would dance around the living room to this when I was younger. Brown eyes -" she pointed up at her eyes. "Get it? I think we both ignored the whole 'making love in the green grass' part. Gross. Are you a fan?" She swayed a little in her seat. It obviously brought her happiness.

"Am I a fan? Remember those girls?" I pointed behind us. "I'd transform into one of them if I saw him on the street." She laughed at my admission.

Feeling at peace for a change, I rested my head back and closed my eyes to listen to the music. She seemed to understand and just drove while drinking in the greatness. If the drive couldn't get any better, my favorite song came on next, "Beside You." It was a lesser known song than the ones she listed before, but I was glad to know she went beyond the major hits. She was a true fan.

As the song was ending, she turned a corner and I saw the hotel down the street. Her foot pressed on the brake all of a sudden, and we stopped on the side of the road. I turned to face her, confused by this action. She had an almost pained expression it seemed.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"It probably wouldn't be smart for me to drop you off at the front of the hotel, Just Edward. There will be people around... people interested in making a buck. I'm sure you're not interested in you and me gracing the cover of the next gossip rag with the headline _IN LOVE._"

Her observation stung a little, and I didn't know why. But, she was probably right. I'd had enough of those covers to know that it gets overwhelming. And, it would certainly be overwhelming for her, as she was from a small town and lived a quiet, ordinary life. I was not willing to subject her to what my life was like.

Shaking my head, I agreed with her and met her eyes again. There was something intriguing about this woman. She was obviously smart and kind, but something about her eyes and the way she acted around me told me that there was more to her than a bookstore and her nurturing nature. I opened my door but stopped before I got out.

"You said you were going somewhere tonight?" I inquired.

"I'm meeting my friends at The Library."

I couldn't help but smile. "I get that you love books and everything, but that doesn't sound like a very interesting place to go at nine o'clock at night. You weren't kidding about not having much to do around here!" I laughed as she looked down at her lap and shook her head at me.

"The Library is a local bar, Mr. Cullen. My best friend Alice and I are meeting our other friends Rosalie and Angela to celebrate and let loose," she explained.

"What are you celebrating?"

"Life," she shrugged. "It's so unpredictable and exciting and breathtaking if you just stop and notice everything you're given, don't you think? We get together every now and then to celebrate our friendship, our loves and just plain being able to experience this wild ride with each other because each day we get to live is a gift."

I sat there completely stunned at this. This woman was indeed intriguing.

"Well, have a great time. I'll be stuck in my prison cell. Think of me," I teased while pointing toward the hotel. She smiled at me and grabbed my hand, squeezing it slightly. Her face was serious now.

"I'm sorry you're sequestered in a room while everybody else in the world gets to celebrate life." She shook her head as if in disbelief and a crease appeared between her beautiful eyes. "I can't imagine. I hope you get freedom again some day."

I opened the door a little more and stepped out, releasing her hand with my own slight squeeze on hers. I gave her my sincere thanks for rescuing me and closed the door softly and then waved goodbye as she pulled out into the road again.

As I walked the block to the hotel, I noticed two men with cameras hovering around the front entrance. She saved me more than once today. _You aren't getting a news story from me today, boys._ For some reason, though, I didn't think it would have bothered me to have _her_ next to me on the next magazine cover. _Don't think like that, Just Edward. She's better than this._

I pushed my way into the lobby with my head down and a small smile plastered on my face. I made my way into the waiting elevator, pushed the button to the top floor and leaned back for the ride up. As the doors closed in front of me, I rubbed my eyes with the palm of my hands and said aloud, "I didn't even ask for her name."

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

You can find a photo of the chandelier and Bella's bronze XC60 in my profile.

_**If you leave me a review on the latest updated chapter, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
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**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	2. Chapter 2 Can Someone Throw The Girl

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Will things always stay this easy?  
**

**The first few chapters are an introduction to the main and supporting characters.**

**Rated M for: Angst, language, violence and lemony goodness...eventually.**

**

* * *

**

**I've made my own playlist to go along with the story, so just hit play when the song is mentioned to get a full experience.**

**http://www (dot) playlist (dot) com/playlist/18746192139**

**

* * *

**

**CHAPTER TWO**

**Can someone throw the girl a bone?**

I sauntered up the steps to my favorite bar in my favorite casual dress and heels. Nothing in this world could ruin my evening. It was time to celebrate with my favorite girls. I spotted my favorite pixie Alice in the back at our usual booth, bouncing up and down. It surprised me how a woman that had worked all day on her feet had that much energy at this time of night.

Deciding her outlook towards the evening was something I could mirror to make my night even more enjoyable, I ran into her open arms and started jumping up and down with her. We squealed like little girls at a Miley Cyrus concert and settled into our seats.

We got the side eye from a few bar patrons, but I didn't care. She had already ordered her usual dry martini with two onions, so I ordered a lemon drop martini to start off the night. I was sure it would progress to bottles of Heineken as the night went along, but right then I needed a cocktail.

Within five minutes, I saw Rosalie strolling along the bar, turning every head like always. She was a sex kitten, and she knew it. Clad in her signature red, she stopped at the head of the table and yelled, "How's my bitches!" _Oh, Rosalie._ She flipped her long blonde hair and turned her head back to the bar. All ten men turned back to their beers trying to hide their ogling.

I jumped up to hug her. "How was Italy, Rosie?

"Gorgeous, as always!" she smiled. "The men are even more gorgeous, though."

"Of course they are!" I exclaimed. I lived vicariously through my friends. Rosalie claimed she would always be single. She loved men too much to commit to just one. But, underneath it all she was a softie with a gigantic heart that was about to burst with all of the love she held in it. Children were very important to her, so she became an obstetrician.

Alice, my dear Alice, is married to her high school sweetheart Jasper Whitlock. Once they had their son Brandon, she decided to open up her own clothing store so she could make her own hours. She was an amazing designer, and her clothes flew off the shelves to prove that point.

"Hey, guys." I looked up and saw Angela. Her eyes were puffy and watery, and her nose was red. I was concerned that something had happened.

"You okay, Ange?"

"No, Ben gave me his cold." She sniffled and then sneezed.

"Ack!" Rosalie screamed holding up her fingers crossed in front of her. "Move away from the table, sister! I can't catch your germies. I'm delivering twins Monday morning. No time for getting sick."

"Sorry," Angela said, in a stuffed up voice. "I'd love to hang out, but, well I have the germies."

"_Germies_," Rosalie repeated, shuddering.

"I'm sorry, honey," I said. "Get home and feel better, okay? Smack that husband of yours on the head for giving you his cold."

Angela smiled weakly. "Already did it." She waved goodbye to us and headed toward the front of the bar.

"That's too bad," Alice said, sounding downtrodden. "It's been months since we've done this, and she gets sick."

"Well, it's just one more thing to celebrate, then," Rosalie said. Alice and I looked at her in shock. Rosalie reached her hand out and grabbed a bottle of beer off a passing waitress' tray. "To not being sick!" she said, holding it up in the middle of the table.

We all smiled and clinked our glasses together. "To not being sick!"

Just then Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" sounded throughout the bar. Groans were heard all around, but Alice screamed at the top of her lungs again, just like we were at one of her concerts. Actually, that's exactly how she sounded when we took her to one of her concerts. Silly pixie. She grabbed our arms and led us to the dance floor, most against our wills. Not completely, but mostly. _Damn song and its catchy tune._

Just like always, we started dancing in a circle singing along to the lyrics. This always drew stares from men, especially when we were with Rosalie. She liked to make a show of her sexuality when she was with us because she knew we would allow her free reign to do whatever she wanted with us.

We were noddin' our heads like yeah and movin' our hips like yeah when I felt someone squeeze my ass.

"Hey!" I shrieked and turned around quickly to face the asshole that put his hand on me. _Jake._

"Get the hell away from me," I said sternly. He proceeded to laugh in my face.

"Ohhhhh, a little feisty tonight, are we? Don't worry, honey. I don't want your ass anymore anyways," he snorted. "I just wanted a little squeeze to remind me of what I'm not missing."

_That was a low blow, Jake._ I knew what kind of person he really was, but it still hurt to hear something like that. I'd given him eight years of my life, and he threw it away for the town tramp. I deserved better, but his comment still knocked a few rings off of my self-esteem meter.

Before I could open my mouth again to tell him off, I was shoved to the side by a force to be reckoned with. "Back off, asshole," Rosalie growled, coming up within inches of his face. "Touch her again, and I'll shove forceps so far up your ass, I'll scoop out your brain." I had to stifle a giggle at the absurdity of such a thing. I loved this girl and her protective nature. This wasn't the first time she'd had to use it to help me.

In one second I was watching the fight of the century between my brainscoop-wielding friend and my cheating dickhead of an ex, and then the next, I was sucking face with a man that was too close to even recognize. And, this man was a really, really good face sucker, I had to admit.

My eyes were still open, searching for any clues to who this was, and that's when I recognized the striking color of his eyes. They were the green eyes that made me weak at the knees only hours before.

Now, I'm not someone that goes around kissing just any man, but why would I give up this chance? Rosalie seems to be handling Jake fairly well on her own. Out of the corner of my eye, I even thought I even saw Alice hitting him in the head with her purse. _Go Alice!_

Wow, this man was a great kisser, but why would he be kissing me? Mmmmmmm...his lips are so pillowy soft and moist. I could do this all day.

I felt and heard what I thought was a small moan escape his lips as our mouths parted and our tongues brushed. I wrapped my arms around his neck just to get a little closer, and then all of a sudden he stopped. _He_ stopped, but my mouth didn't. I felt the remaining air in my lungs whoosh out as his body stepped back from mine. I slowly opened my eyes with my lips still parted and met those green eyes again.

Yep, I had just made out with Edward Cullen in the middle of a crowded dance floor at The Library.

I looked over at Rosalie and Alice and both of their mouths were practically hanging down to their knees. I excused myself hurriedly and walked over to grab their hands so I could lead them back to our table, all the while I kept my head dipped in embarrassment. We seemed to have made quite a scene, and everyone in our vicinity was staring.

As the three of us sat down, I looked back at Edward before I sat down, and he was now in Jake's face. They were roughly the same height, but Jake was probably twice as wide. I couldn't hear what Edward said to Jake because Miley was singing too loud, but it obviously got his attention and made him back off. He simply nodded his head infinitesimally, looked over at me and then turned to leave without any more of a scene.

Edward walked over to our table and exclaimed, "Well, that was worth the hassle of breaking out of prison!" He then winked at me, beaming pride and masculinity.

I gawked up at him, his gorgeous bronze tousled hair from earlier now hidden under an old baseball cap. I still did not completely understanding what had just happened. He sure wasn't acting like he just kissed me by surprise. Had that really happened, or had I imagined it?

"Can I sit?" he asked, motioning to the empty space next to me.

"Oh, sure!" I sputtered, moving over a little for him to have more room. I glanced back over at my friends and let a short laugh escape my lips. I reached over the table and propped their jaws back up to their normal position, holding them there for a few seconds to make sure they stayed. "Girls? Breathe."

They both took deep breaths at the same time and released them at the same time. It was Edward's turn to laugh. "Well, since...wait, what's your name?" he looked at me, his brow wrinkled.

"Bella Swan." _Oh, Jesus. I just gave him my full name like we're at a job interview._

"Well, since Bella Swan won't introduce me to you beautiful ladies, let me introduce myself. I'm Edward Cullen. Just call me Edward, though." He stretched his hand across the table and shook their trembling hands.

"_Bella!" _Alice whisper-yelled, as if this conversation could only be heard by the two of us. My head snapped to hers. _"Edward Cullen is sitting at our table! Edward Cullen just made out with you on a dance floor! Why aren't you freaking out?_

I looked back at Edward still dumbfounded. I obviously was freaking out. It was a silent freaking out. I could barely speak or form full sentences. Two word answers, that's all I could muster.

"I'll reply to that," Edward piped up. "Bella Swan and I met earlier today at her bookstore. She saved me from some adoring fans of mine that were getting a little too close for comfort. Then, we listened to some Van Morrison while she drove me back to within one block of my hotel." He leaned in and whispered, "Thanks for that, by the way. There were two paps by the door. You are very perceptive."

"Just Bella," I blurted out, still not past this two word thing.

"Huh?" he asked, confusion on his face.

"Don't call me by my full name. That's weird. Just Bella." _Ahhhhh, coherency has returned._

"Okay. Just Bella it is." Then he winked at me again.

I looked back at the girls and noticed the smirks on their faces. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Rosalie said, shaking her head and obviously holding back a huge grin.

_"B__ella!" _Alice whisper-yelled again. _"How could you leave this vital piece of information out of our conversations tonight? This shit is major!"_

"_Alice_," I whined, staring down at my now empty drink. "It wasn't my place. Mr. Cullen needs his privacy."

He leaned into me and bumped my shoulder with his. "Just Edward, remember? And, Just Bella." He held up his hand and motioned for the waitress, and she walked over. "What are you ladies drinking?" he asked, looking at each of us.

"Another dirty martini, two onions," Alice replied.

"Heineken," I said. Afraid I was going to drop a dainty martini glass with my shaking hands, I opted for the sturdy beer bottle instead.

"Scotch. Lots of scotch," Rosalie stated, with a cough. "Lots and lots of fucking scotch."

Edward smiled. "Make it two Heinekens to account for me. I'd like to start a tab for the table. Put all of our drinks on my credit card for the rest of the evening." He reached for his wallet in his back pocket and started to hand the piece of plastic to the waitress. I grabbed his hand as he was giving it to her and shook my head 'no' adamantly. He turned his eyes to mine.

"She'll find out who you are," I whispered just loud enough for him. "Let me do this." Our faces were very close now; our noses a hairsbreadth apart. If I leaned in just a teeny tiny bit I'd be kissing him again. _Ugh, I want to kiss you again. _As his eyes were locked with mine, I reached my hand out to the waitress with my card and gave it to her instead. Then, I cupped my hand around his and pulled it down to the table.

"I'll pay you back," he said.

"No," I said shaking my head and biting my bottom lip. "It's on me."

"I'll find a way to pay you back." His breath fanned over my face and left me slightly dazed. _What the hell is this man doing to me?!_

Just then, another song started. Ne-Yo's "Closer" blared through the speakers and our locked gaze was interrupted.

"Come on, Just Bella." He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the booth toward an empty spot on the dance floor.

He grabbed my waist and pulled me to him, our hips once separate entities but now moving rhythmically as one.

_Turn the lights off in this place  
And she shines just like a star  
And I swear I know her face  
I just don't know who you are  
Turn the music up in here  
I still hear her loud and clear  
Like she's right there in my ear  
Telling me that she wants to own me  
To control me  
Come closer, Come closer, Come closer_

He took my arms and wrapped them around his neck, resuming our body position from the last time we were out here together. He ground into my hips, and I couldn't help but whimper.

_And I just can't pull myself away  
Under her spell I can't break  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
And I just can't bring myself no way  
But I don't want to escape  
I just can't stop, I just can't stop  
I just can't stop, I just can't stop  
I just can't stop_

He ran the back of his fingers delicately up my arm eliciting goosebumps, and I shivered from his touch. His eyes bored into mine, searching for something, but I didn't know what.

_I can feel her on my skin  
I can taste her on my tongue  
She's the sweetest taste of sin  
The more I get the more I want  
She wants to own me  
Come closer  
She says "come closer"_

"Bella," he whispered. "I _can_ still taste you on my tongue. Can I kiss you again?" His hypnotizing green eyes flickered to my mouth.

_And I just can't pull myself away  
Under her spell I can't break  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
And I just can't bring myself no way  
But I don't want to escape  
I just can't stop, I just can't stop  
I just can't stop, I just can't stop  
I just can't stop_

I stared at him not understanding why this man would want to kiss _me_. And, not only kiss me but kiss me _again_.

_Come Closer...._

"Okay," I said breathlessly. He took his right hand and cupped the side of my neck under my ear, brushing his thumb along my cheek bone while he slowly and carefully leaned down and placed his lips back to mine sending sparks back through my body.

_I just can't stop nooooo  
I just can't stop nooooo  
I just can't stop nooooo  
I just can't stop nooooo_

We started to sway more and grind deeply into each other as the song continued. We wrapped ourselves around one another as our kissing became more desperate, forgetting everyone else in the bar.

_And I just can't pull myself away  
Under her spell I can't break  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
And I just can't bring myself no way  
But I don't want to escape  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
I just can't stop_

He lifted me slightly off the floor and was now hugging me to his chest, our bodies lined up and as close as possible. His right arm held me tightly around the waist and his left hand held the back of my neck while he kissed me passionately.

_And I just can't pull myself away  
Under her spell I can't break  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
I just cant stop, I just cant stop  
I just cant stop_

"Oh God, Bella," he groaned into my mouth.

_Come closer _

The song ended and we broke our kiss. "Wow," was all I could say. He smiled a crooked smile at me, and then lowered my feet back to the ground. Hand in hand, we walked back toward the table. He wouldn't take his eyes off of mine, and my eyes refused to leave his, as well.

_What the hell is going on?_ I'd known him for a few hours, and this felt natural; like we'd been meant for this. It was frightening. I had never felt anything even remotely similar to this when I was with Jake. And that even compares to when we were good for each other... when we each truly loved the other... when there was nobody else. I didn't remember ever feeling the need for Jake like I felt the need for Edward.

After I drove out of his sight earlier this evening, I screamed in my car. I'd wanted to do that since I first spotted him outside my bookstore. I really had no customers because it was Saturday at 5:00. People were probably on their way to Port Angeles for dinner. One look at his face through the window told me he was scared for his life. I did my best impersonation of being a livid business owner and yelled at the pre-pubescent girls that were about one second from ripping his shirt off his torso and shoving their hands down his pants.

In the process, I think I ended up scaring him even more than they did. After he started to leave, I beckoned him to come in. I could tell he didn't trust me. Sure, I wanted to lock him away and make sweet, sweet love to him, but I would be no different than any other girl. So, I calmed myself down and explained to him that I was just one person. One measly little thing. He must have agreed after looking down at the corner. They'd congregated again, and were ready to pounce. _He's mine now, girls, _I'd thought. I laughed quietly then at myself for the absurdity of the thought, but now I freaking needed a paper bag to stop from hyperventilating over how true that fact may be!

_Fuckin' A! Hand me a paper bag!_

How I was able to act like a normal person while he was looking around the store is beyond me. I'm not the actor in this relationship.

_Relationship?! Shit, hand me another bag. Mine's busted._

I called Alice to make sure the fangirls were still down at the corner, and then decided to close a little early. I wouldn't be able to function for the rest of the day anyways. My legs felt like jelly standing there in front of him, so I asked if he would turn the locks and sign and flip off the lights because I was afraid I would melt into a pile of goo in front of him, and that would be embarrassing. Those few moments of him performing my closing duties would give me the seconds I needed to compose myself.

When we got to the back door, my arm and hand decided to betray me. I felt it reach back without my permission and grab his hand. I was completely mortified that it had done such a thing. Much to my surprise, though, his fingers curled around mine for a perfect fit. Sparks shot up my arm and exploded in my heart like fireworks. It was painful. It was startling. It was incredible.

I couldn't take the energy coursing through my veins anymore, so I dashed out the door all "Mission: Impossible" like and threw myself into my car. I could hear the theme song repeating in my head, so I had to turn up my music to drown it out. When he heard my CD, I saw his face light up. He liked Van Morrison much to my delight. My favorite song was playing when I turned up, and it was followed by my second favorite "Beside You."

As we approached the hotel, I started to freak out. Who knew he was here? Were there paparazzi? It seemed ludicrous to imagine them in this small town, but he _was_ a huge movie star. I decided to drop him off a block from the hotel because I wanted to be safe.

Who was I? Just a girl from small town.

He asked where I was going with Alice, but I never guessed he would actually end up here tonight. I figured I'd thoroughly scared the man when I grabbed his hand again in the car. Once he left for his "prison cell" I drove away as quickly as I could because I needed to scream. And, scream I did.

Rosalie and Alice were gone somewhere when we sat back down at our table. When the girls returned, they couldn't take their bewildered eyes off of Edward and I for the rest of the evening. I started getting paranoid after two hours of that crap, but I also had consumed a lot of alcohol. Too much alcohol. It was probably the booze freaking me out. I looked at them all of a sudden and threw my hands up, "I've got to pee!" I yelled.

Alice giggled and grabbed by hand to lead me out of the booth. As I stood, my form swayed heavily to the right and started to topple over, but before I could fall two strong arms grabbed me around the waist and held me still until I got my balance back.

"Whoa," I said while grabbing my forehead. "I think I'm done. Yep. Done. Finito." Shaking my head up and down, I patted his hands when I was okay to walk like a big girl. Rosalie helped lead me to the restroom, leaving Edward to his devices.

As soon as we walked in the door to the restroom, the girls attacked me with questions.

"Are you guys dating?"

"Is he a good kisser?"

"Did you guys have sex or something in his hotel room before? That was damn hot!"

"Did you know I had to take off my panties after watching you two?"

"Ewwwwww gross, Rosalie!" I scoffed, grabbing my head to keep it from falling off. "I don't want to know about your panties! Oh, my god! My head is spinning around. Why won't it stop spinning?!" The dimly lit room rotated and swirled round and round and round and round. _Oh, Lord. I'm going to be sick._

Alice grabbed me by the shoulders and smacked me across the face. "Snap out of it, Bella! You have made out twice tonight with Edward. Fucking. Cu-"

I threw my hand over her mouth before she could finish his name. "Shhhhh, Alice! Do you not understand his need for privacy?" I whispered.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly. "But, are you guys dating or something?"

"No!" I screamed in shock. "That's... well... I don't know what that was out there!" My arms were flailing around my body, mostly gesturing to outside this bathroom. "He's probably like this with every girl. It's no big deal. It's one night of having fun."

As much as I knew that was probable true, I couldn't help but feel I little spark of hope that maybe he actually was interested in me. A bonfire's worth? A newly lit match? A lighter that wouldn't light? I had to admit that I felt a little something for him, but that was stupid. He was a famous actor. For all he knew, I was a nobody bookstore owner from Forks, Washington.

"Bullshit," Rosalie chimed in. "That man wants to bone you."

I sputtered in surprise. "_Bone me_, Rosie? Really, do people still _bone_?" I asked incredulously.

"Oh, hell yeah. That man's got it bad for you, too. He wants to bone," she said matter-of-factly.

"Oh, good God!" I threw my hands up in the air and stumbled to an empty stall. "I don't bone," I proclaimed, as I slammed the metal door shut with a clang. The girls just laughed at me out at the mirrors.

When I was finished, they led me back out to the table where Edward was waiting with all of our purses in a pile.

"I called for my driver. He's going to take us all home. I don't want any of you driving."

I started to object, but Rosalie interrupted me. "Thanks, Edward," she crooned and then turned to me, winking.

"Yes, thank you," I said sweetly and then swayed to the left. Edward once again had to catch me.

"Okaaaaay! It's time to get you home, Bella!" he laughed. He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me closer so that my weight was bearing down on him. My nose was close enough to him that I was able to lean in for a sniff of his shirt without him noticing. He smelled like man. Sweat and alcohol and cologne. Mmmmm. We started for the door through the mass of people.

"Wait!" I yelled, halting our progression. "The tab! My credit card! I forgot to pay!" I spun around quickly and headed toward the bartender. Within a second, the force of the spin caused the ground to rush up toward my face. _Ahh, dammit. _Then, before I felt the impact, I was airborne, swept up into two protective arms.

"Bella, love, I took care of the tab. Your card is back in your purse," Edward said into my ear. I was too far gone to care that he had ended up paying for everything after all, so I just took my right hand and patted his left cheek like a grandma while he walked us out of the bar.

"Do boys still bone?" I asked. He stared a me for a second and then a huge laugh erupted from his chest. "Hey, what's so funny?" I muttered with a wrinkled up nose.

"Well...that's the oddest, most random question I've ever been asked, and that's saying a lot!" He paused outside the door of the car, contemplating his answer. Bending his head down, his lips brushed against the shell of my ear. His breath as he spoke sent a shiver down my spine. "To answer your question honestly, though, I'm sure some boys do. But I don't bone, Bella. Women deserve more respect than that. _You_ deserve to be worshiped."

Then, he brushed his lips on the side of my head.

That was the last thing I remembered before slipping off into dreamland.

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	3. Chapter 3 What are you doing to me?

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**I wanted to send a shout out to all of my worldwide readers! I've got quite a few of you! I love you all! And, thanks for the couple of reviews I've gotten and those that have put it in favorites or alerts. I wasn't sure if anybody would read it, and it seems there are those out there that have! You're all awesome.**

**Rated M for angst, language, drama and lemony goodness...eventually.**

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**CHAPTER THREE**

**What Are You Doing To Me?**

"Women deserve more respect that that. _You_ deserve to be worshiped........Bella? Bella, are you awake?" She passed out. I slowly slid into the back seat with Alice, and I placed Bella sitting on the hump, slumped against my side. I would have just laid her down across my lap, but my driver Marcus said she _had_ to be sitting up. _Ass. _Rosalie took the front passenger seat willingly considering there were no other seats.

Marcus asked who lived the closest, and Alice chimed in cheerily saying she lived about five minutes away. He started down the road while Alice recited directions to him. I was doing my best to hold an unconscious Bella upright in the seat next to me, but it was getting difficult. When the girl was out, she was out. Rosalie and Alice were chatting animatedly back and forth about the evening, not paying a bit of attention to where we were or were going, when...

"Oh, this is my street!" Alice shrieked, startling me out of discreetly smelling Bella's hair, which smelled of freesia and lavender.

Marcus made a hard left in response to Alice's command, and I lost control of my hold. Her head, once laying on my shoulder peacefully, slowly slid down my chest before she faceplanted. Right. On. My. Crotch.

"Oh, my God! Bella getcha some!" Alice laughed hysterically. Rosalie spun around in her seat with a gleam in her eye and a huge fucking grin on her face. Marcus, well, he gave me the look of death. _What the hell was his problem? _Alice pointed out her house and he pulled over.

I was able to get Bella back upright and told Marcus I'd give him a $1000 bonus if he'd let me lay her across the backseat. He complied just like I knew he would. Alice leaned forward and gave Rosalie a quick peck on the cheek and then moved over to give me one as well. Leaning forward between the two front seats again, she tapped the top of Marcus' head and smiled playfully.

"Thanks, handsome," she said. He grumbled lowly. When she ran up to her house, I saw a man standing in the doorway pick her up and spin her around before closing the door. He was tall and lean and had a head of curly blonde hair. Adjusting Bella's legs, I placed her head comfortably in my lap...not on my crotch.

"Where do you live Rosalie?" I asked. She told the driver that she lived about two minutes from Alice's house and gave him the simple directions. Deciding now would be the easiest time, I asked, "Hey, Rosalie, where does Bella live? I'm going to make sure she gets home okay." I ran my fingers through her hair as it fanned across my lap, feeling how soft and silky it was.

Rosalie said it would be difficult to find, but I told her just to give us an address and Marcus could punch it into the GPS. She pulled out a piece of paper from her purse and wrote Bella's address on it. Taking it from her, I looked at it. "Is this out of town?"

"Yeah, she lives in a quaint little house out by the stream. I tell her it's not nearly big enough for what she can afford, but she doesn't listen to me. No, no, no. She won't listen to the older and wiser Rosalie." Bella must enjoy the simple pleasures, I thought. Nothing wrong with that. Plus, why live in something that's too much for one person? Then I laughed at myself because I did just that with my house in LA.

"Are there any markers that will tell us it's her house?" I asked.

"Ummm, well, she lives off the main road about a mile. Her driveway is actually kind of hard to find. It'll just sneak up on you if you aren't looking for it. Let's see, what can I tell you to look for," she contemplated, tapping her finger on her chin. "Oh! About a quarter of a mile before the turn, you'll see an old rusted out red truck on the side of the road. It's been there for years. Her drive will be right after that on the right side. There's no mailbox, so watch for it."

"Great, thanks," I said. She pointed out her house, and Marcus pulled into the four-car wide driveway. This was a huge house. I understood why she probably pushed Bella to buy a bigger one. "What do you _do_ for a living?" I asked, staring out the window at the two-story brick mansion.

"I'm an obstetrician. I'm actually delivering twins on Monday. It'll be babies number 200 and 201 for me. It's kind of exciting."

"That's great, Rosalie. It sounds very rewarding."

"It is. I may never have my own, but at least I get to help bring them into the world every day."

I smiled at her and bid her good night after she thanked me for the drinks and the ride home. Before leaving, I handed Marcus the piece of paper and he entered the address. "It says it'll be about 20 minutes, Mr. Cullen."

"Okay, let's find this place," I said, while brushing my fingertips from behind her ear along her jawline and then back up.

As we headed out of town, I started to think back to what happened tonight. When I'd gotten back into my hotel room, I couldn't get her out of my mind. She was so fierce when I first saw her. She was frightening and sexy at the same time. And, she loved Van Morrison! That was sexy in itself. I had an internal war over if I should go to the bar. Could I just go up to her and talk like we were old friends? Would it be best to just sit back and watch her? It was a girl's night after all. That seemed awfully stalkerish, though. Still contemplating, I ordered room service and watched _Unfaithful_ on HBO. I would have read, but I didn't have anything that I hadn't already read 10 times through.

When the movie was over, I took a long, hot shower to try to calm myself down. It probably wasn't the best choice to choose when I was in this state. When the water hit me, my body reacted. My erection was so hard it was painful. My mind was filled with images of her. Her in my bed. Her up against her bookshelves at the store or maybe in one of those mismatched sofas. Her anywhere. I had to stop thinking like that, so I relieved myself before getting out. Rummaging through my luggage, I found some clean clothes and my ratty baseball cap. My mind was made up. I was going to go. I made a call down to the front desk to ask for access to their loading entrance. The manager complied and said he'd meet me in the lobby in 15 minutes.

A quick call on my cell to Marcus, an uneventful drive, and 10 minutes later, we were pulling up outside. I checked my watch to see what time it was. Nine fifteen. She should be there. When I entered the front door, that stupid Miley Cyrus song was just starting. I was going to have to listen to the whole damn thing. This song grated on my last nerve. My eyes started scanning the bar looking for her long mahogany hair that whipped in the wind on her steps as she stared me down. The same mahogany hair that I'd pictured wrapped around my hand.

My eyes stopped searching when I saw a flash of it twirling in the air on the dance floor. She seemed to be enjoying herself, singing the lyrics and swaying her hips to the rhythm with two other girls. Her beautiful brown eyes lit up as she sang, her cheeks flushed due to the heat of the room. Every man had their eyes on these three women ready to pounce as soon as they saw the chance, yet they seemed totally oblivious to it. _Eyes back to your drinks, dickheads._

I started walking in her direction when I saw a built man walk up behind her and grab her ass. My feet stopped mid-stride as my body stiffened. Maybe she had a boyfriend or a husband. I'd never thought to check her ring finger or even ask.

"Hey!" I heard her yell over the music. Her face alerted me that she was not happy about this. I started toward them again instantly. No one should touch her like that. The leggy blonde friend pushed her out of the way, and I heard her say something about scooping out his brains right before I crashed my lips to Bella's, pulling her away from the man. I couldn't stop myself even if I tried. I didn't like the way her mouth was set. She was upset. She was angry. She was hurt. I wanted to wipe that away.

She tasted better than I'd imagined. Lemon and expensive vodka. I thought she would put up a fight, but she didn't – she was kissing me back. She must have been thinking just as much about me as I was her. As if she read my mind we parted our lips at the same time and our tongues brushed against one another. I couldn't help the small moan that came out. God, she was an amazing kisser. She put her arms around me pulling me down closer to her, and I started to get a little too excited about this. I had to stop this, or I'd embarrass myself.

I released her lips and face and stepped back. My eyes were trained on her mouth, which was still parted. I wanted to shove my tongue back in there and massage hers. Her eyes which were slightly hooded grew wide. _Did she not know it was me the whole time? _She looked over at her friends and then bolted over to them to drag them back to their table. I stood up straight at the sight of the dickhead ass-grabber in front of me.

"Mr. Cullen? Is that the red truck the lady was talking about?" He pointed up ahead of him to where the lights were shining on this 1950's-looking rusted out bulbous red pick-up truck.

"I'd guess so. I'll help you look for the drive. She said it would be on the right. Did she say a quarter of a mile? Oh, that must be it!" I yelled pointing. He slowed down and pulled onto the gravel road. It was very windy, and I started to wonder if this actually wasn't the right one. Then, all of a sudden, a house grew out of the trees.

_Quaint? Little? Not Nearly Big Enough? _My Lord, this house was bigger than mine! It was only lit by the bright moonlight, but from what I could see, this was an architectural wonder built into the woods. It was angular and white, covered in large glass windows. It was very modern, but it also had the feel like it belonged out here all along.

Marcus turned off the engine and got out to open the door for me. I leaned my head down and tried to wake Bella by talking softly into her ear while gently shaking her shoulder, but she wouldn't even stir. So, I scooped her tiny body into my arms and stepped out of the car doing my best not to bump her legs.

"Hey, can you grab her bag and look for her keys," I asked Marcus, motioning my head to the backseat. He reached into the car, rummaged through her purse and pulled them out. "Will you help me get the door open so I can take her in?" We walked up to the front door, and he started trying the multiple keys in the lock. I took that moment to look down at Bella and smiled at how beautiful she was even in her sleep. She was so peaceful; the soft burst of air leaving her lips and rustling my shirt.

"Found it," he said triumphantly. He swung the door open, and I looked back at the car contemplating my next move. I could deposit her in her bedroom and leave or...

"I don't feel comfortable leaving her like this, especially since she probably won't remember how she got home," I told him. "I think I'm going to stay here tonight. Would you mind driving back out here tomorrow morning and giving me a ride to my meeting? I know it's Sunday, but they want to meet for brunch and go over some last minute things before production begins."

"Sure, Mr. Cullen. I'm at your service, Mr. Cullen," he said, with a sneer.

"What the fuck is your problem, Marcus?" I snapped. "You've been short with me since we left the bar."

"Absolutely nothing is wrong, Mr. Cullen. Have an enjoyable evening with your toy," he said as he turned and walked back to the car. _What the fuck did he just say?_

"Hey, that's out of line," I barked. "You better reign it in. I'm not going to put up with comments like that."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir," he said, but I knew it wasn't a sincere apology.

"I expect you here at 9:30 a.m. on the dot." I told him.

"I'm at your service, sir," he said with a bow. He closed his door and peeled out of the drive, leaving me confused by the whole night. What the hell was with his attitude? He'd been my personal driver for nearly a year, and played an important role in getting me to my commitments safely and on time. I was never rude to him nor did I ever treat him like he was less of a person because he was a driver. That would be ludicrous because I didn't think like that. The whole thing was making me uncomfortable.

Looking back down at Bella in my arms, though, my mood couldn't help but be lifted. I closed the front door quietly with my foot and turned around staring into the house. The whole wall in front of me was glass that overlooked a stream and more forest. The stream sparkled in the moonlight.

As I stepped out of the foyer into the main living area, I looked to my left and saw a set of stairs. I figured her bedroom was upstairs, so I crept toward them being careful not to stir her. As I climbed I looked at the pictures of her family and friends that hung on the wall going up. She looked very loved. It was easy to see why. She'd already shown me tenacity, fierceness, loyalty and gratitude. Those were all wonderful qualities for a person to have.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I had the option of left or right. All of the doors were closed to the right, but, to the left, there was one door that was open at the end of the hall. When I walked into the room, my breath caught in my throat. The entire outer two walls were floor to ceiling glass windows like downstairs. It was breathtaking. This had to be her bedroom. It was all shades of white and tan. It was sexy yet simple.

Though she wasn't heavy by any means, my arms started to fall asleep with her weight draped across them. I walked over to the mammoth tan leather bed and maneuvered the coverlet and sheets down before placing her peacefully on top.

I reached down and took her heels off of her feet. Her skin was soft and smooth as the tips of my fingers brushed along her ankles. I then unbuckled the belt around her dress and slid it out from under her. For a brief moment, I considered taking her dress off for her, but that would probably be considered taking advantage of a drunk girl. Instead, I slid her feet under the covers and pulled the sheet up to her shoulders just in case she got cold when she slept. I shoved my fingers under her sides, pulling the blanket tightly around her body.

"Snug as a bug in a rug," I whispered. My mother used to do that for me when I was young. It always made me feel comforted. I wanted to comfort Bella.

I stood there for a minute staring down at her and the way her hair fanned across the down pillow like it had across my lap. The moonlight filtered in the window and cast soft shadows on her face making her look angelic. I bent down and placed a lingering kiss on her forehead.

"You deserve to be worshiped, Bella," I whispered again before angling my head and giving her one soft kiss on her slightly parted lips. Turning, I walked out of the room and shut the door behind me with a quiet click. I stood in the hallway for a moment to catch my breath. _Jesus, that woman can make me weak at the knees even when she was unconscious!_

I got my bearings back and headed downstairs. Her house was amazing. How could she afford something like this by owning a bookstore? Did she sell books made of gold?

I found the kitchen and opened the refrigerator looking for some water to quench my thirst. Grabbing a bottle, I scanned the illuminated glass shelves looking to see if I could find out anything else about her. Celery, carrots, a jar of spaghetti sauce, a carton of eggs, bacon, salsa, a styrofoam box of leftovers, soft taco shells, sliced cheese, milk, orange juice, and four jars of pickles. _The damn woman likes pickles – it's looking up for me! _Well, that didn't tell me much besides I could probably give her a whole dill pickle, and she'd love me forever.

Sure that I wouldn't find out too much about her from her fridge, I walked into the living room and laid down on the sofa. I could probably snoop around upstairs and find a perfectly good guest bedroom behind one of the closed doors, but I didn't want to go barging through her personal space too much. Reaching my hand up, I grabbed the blanket off the back and covered myself in it. The house was so eerily quiet except for the trickling water outside as I laid there with my arm tucked behind my head. My mind began to wander again.

The dickhead ass-grabber stood in front of me with a smirk on his face. Even though he was bigger than I was, I wasn't intimidated at all. He crossed a line by touching Bella that way without her permission. I took a step forward and plastered my best fake smile on my face. I was an Oscar-nominated actor after all. I continued walking forward until I was close enough that I could keep my voice down but he'd still be able to hear me. Miley was all loud and nasally, so I figured Bella couldn't hear what I was saying.

"I'm going to tell you this only one time, mongrel," I ground out through my clenched teeth and fake smile. "If you place one finger on her again, I will rip your heart out and drink your blood. That woman is off limits from now on. I don't know what you've had in the past with her, but it's going to stay just that. In the past. Now get the fuck out of this bar before I have you arrested."

The look he gave alerted me that this was not over. I wasn't stupid enough to believe it was, but I was going to be prepared for him when he tried something again. He broke his glare with a nod and turned his head to Bella before walking out of the bar.

I walked over to their table trying to act like nothing serious had just happened. I didn't want her to be worried about that prick. It took some prodding, but she started to open up.

"Just Bella," she blurted out. I was so confused. It came out of nowhere. "Don't call me by my full name. That's weird. Just Bella."

I couldn't help but smile at our little pet names for each other. Just Bella. Just Edward. I took our moments at the table to stare at her and marvel at her beauty. There was conventional beauty in LA, plastic surgery beauty, silicone beauty, and bleach bottle/self tanner beauty, but Bella was naturally beautiful. She was someone that would be the most gorgeous person on the planet with skin untouched by makeup.

She wore minimal as it was. A light dusting of powder, mascara that highlighted the rich brown of her eyes and soft pink blush. As I sat there, though, I noticed the changing color of her cheeks. I realized that she wore no blush after all. It was the natural color of her cheeks. It would change with each accidental touch or word that we spoke.

As I went to hand my credit card to the waitress for our drinks, she touched my hand and I felt something. Something was happening between us. Something that couldn't be explained. I didn't know if this was smart. I stared into her eyes. We were so close. If I moved forward less than an inch, I'd be kissing her again. My lips would be back where they wanted to be.

Pushing through those thoughts, though, I couldn't let her pay for these drinks because it would be too expensive. She was only doing it to protect my identity. I had money, and I was a person who liked to spend it on others.

I shook my head, laughing slightly at the memory. Too expensive? Look at this house! Bella has money...somehow, someway. I didn't care that she had money. Money was a material thing. This house was a material thing. And, I didn't judge a person by material wealth.

I picked up my cell phone on the coffee table to check the time. 3:06 am.

"If I go to sleep now, I'll get just over four hours of sleep," I said quietly, apparently giving myself a sleepy-time pep talk. I threw the arm that was behind my head over my eyes and groaned. "What am I doing?" I chastised myself. I rolled over onto my side and sighed. Closing my eyes, I tried to will the sleep to come.

As soon as it came, fear consumed me. I was running; running harder than I ever had. I was in search of something but I didn't know what. It was dark and the air was cold. In front of me I could see someone with long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. They were hovering over something crumpled on the ground. I couldn't tell what it was, but I felt I had to get there. I ran harder. I was pushing myself past all limits because there was a sinking feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. Every time I seemed to get closer the blonde, the mass would move farther away in some time-warp, blackhole type movement. I started to panic. As I approached one more time, the blonde turned around and stared at me. My feet slowed to a stop, recognition hitting me like a ton of bricks.

"You ruined my life, therefore I take yours in return," the blonde spoke before pulling a gun on me and pointing it at my head.

"Nooooooo!" I yelled, shooting upright on the couch, breathing erratically. I searched the room around me looking for the blonde and the gun. I took deep breaths to calm myself when I didn't see either. "It was only a dream," I said out loud. _This time_, I added silently. I grabbed my phone again. 6:57 a.m. Thirty three minutes until my alarm goes off.

I wasn't about to close my eyes with the fear that I'd be thrown back into my nightmare because there was one thing that I knew. I wasn't willing to find out my fate just yet. After throwing the blanket off of me, I placed my feet on the area rug below me.

Stretching my arms above my head and popping my back, it hit me. _What if I woke her up with my yelling? _She was probably calling 911 right now. I looked around and saw her purse on table in the foyer, so I knew she didn't have her cell phone. I tiptoed to the house phone on the side table and picked up the receiver. Pressing 'talk,' I listened for a scared voice. Instead I heard a dial tone. _Phew._ I returned the receiver to the base and listened for movement upstairs but heard nothing. All was quiet in the glass house by the stream.

I turned back to the couch and folded up the blanket and arranged the pillows back to how they were before I crashed there. Out the window, I could see the wide expanse of a backyard now. The unobstructed view was even more breathtaking than it was in the moonlight. I realized as I was reveling in the beauty that was thirsty again, so I went back to the kitchen to grab another bottle of water.

When I opened the door to the refrigerator, I saw the bacon and eggs again. She was probably hungover, but eating always made me feel better. I turned around to the island and grasped my hands around a pan hanging from the pot rack above it. In ungraceful fashion, I unhooked the pan and accidentally banged it into the two pans on each side of it. The sound reverberated off the wood floor, the glass walls, the granite counter tops and the tile backsplash.

I grimaced and scrunched my eyes together. "_Shit_," I whispered. I halted my movement with the pan still in the air for a few seconds waiting for screams from upstairs. The offending hanging pans swung from the pot rack casting shadows on the island below. I lowered the pan in my hands and placed it on the counter quietly and walked back over to the phone. Picking up the receiver for a second time that morning, I braced myself for a frightened Bella on the line. I pressed the button again and nothing. Hmmm...she probably slept like the dead when she was drunk. I started to put the receiver back down but changed my mind. If my morning kept going this way, I'd need it again eventually.

So, I set out to make breakfast for the both of us as quietly as I could. I grabbed a styrofoam bowl from the cabinet because I learn quickly and placed it on the counter next to the stove. I opened the carton and pulled out an egg. _How will I do this without making any noise?_ I couldn't very well go banging it on the counter to break it. Inspiration struck as I looked around. _If I was a silverware drawer, where would I be? _I thought to myself. Grasping I handle, I jerked a drawer open. Jackpot. I have a sixth sense of where the silverware drawer is in a house. I'm usually always right. The only times I'm wrong is when people put their silverware in the wrong places. I reached in and grabbed a steak knife.

The egg sat in front of me, ready to meet its demise. I bent down to eye level and placed the sharp blade down on the side of the white shell. Stroke, stroke, stroke, success! _I'm a genius. _I cut open three more eggs and turned to the bacon. The grease from the bacon would be perfect for the eggs. I'd watched Food Network a few times when I couldn't find the remote.

I fried the bacon on the lowest setting I could so it wouldn't pop and splatter loudly. Plus, grease always seems to find bare skin on me when I do cook bacon, and I have no control of the expletives that fly out of my mouth. The bacon was getting close to being done when I turned back to the refrigerator to pull out the orange juice. As I was shutting the door, someone small jumped around the corner with a baseball bat in their hands. I stood there in shock for a half second before I screamed at being surprised and she screamed at a man in her kitchen. Her screech pierced my brain, and I dropped the orange juice jug to the floor and covered my ears to relieve the pain. I stood there as she practically ran in place, swapping from one foot to the other in rapid motion while she shrieked.

As if she remembered she was hungover in that instant, I watched as her tiny hand released the bat to travel to her head to soothe it. In slow motion precision, the heavy end of the bat connected with the top of her right foot, and my eyes snapped to her face as I watched her eyes widen in pain and glass over with tears.

"Fucking A!" she screamed. She pulled her right food up in her hands, hopped twice on her left leg and then fell with a resounding 'thunk' to the floor.

I stared at her huddled mass on the floor in shock while she cried. My eyes shot back to the bacon in the pan. It was surely done by now. _What do I go to first? Bella or Bacon? Bacon or Bella?_ I looked back down at her as she writhed in pain. _Always Bella._

I fell to the floor next to her and grabbed her foot in my hands. She flinched from my touch.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" she shrieked before grabbing her head again. "Oh, my God. My head is going to explode! Please, put me out of my misery, Edward. There's a cordless drill in garage. Please make swiss cheese out of my skull. Relieve the pressure, for the love of all that is holy!"

I suppressed my laugh. "Bella, I will not drill holes in your head. I love your head just the way it is. I'll give you some Tylenol and some breakfast and you'll feel better before you know it." I rubbed my hand along the side of her head. "What I'm concerned about is this foot," I said, looking back down to it, delicately placing my hand over it.

"Can you move your toes okay?" I asked. She wiggled her toes as best as she could. She had such cute toes. I placed soft pressure on areas of her foot to find the place that hurt the most. I put it back down on the floor and walked swiftly to the refrigerator. My hand grabbed the towel off the handle and filled it with ice, twisting the ends of the towel to secure it in place. I walked back over to her and set the cool towel on the top of her foot as she flinched again at the temperature.

"Hold that there," I said as I stood up and placed my arms under her knees and behind her back. When I walked over to the couch, I placed her in the same place I had slept last night.

"Thank you," she said weakly. Several tears had fallen from her eyes since she'd attacked me in the kitchen. I sat down on the edge and reached my thumb out to wipe them from her cheeks. "You didn't answer my question," she stated quietly. "Why are you here?"

"Well," I paused. "I don't really know to tell you the truth. You got drunk at the bar last night, and I wanted to make sure you got home safely. I had the driver come and he took all of you home. Once I got here...I...didn't feel right just dropping you off. I slept right here on the couch. I knew you wouldn't remember how you got home and didn't want you to be frightened."

"_Frightened?_" she sputtered with a smirk on her face. "No, not at all. There was nothing scary about waking up and hearing someone rummaging around in your kitchen." She paused and sniffed the air. "By the way, is something burning?"

"Oh, shit! The bacon!" I jumped up from the couch and ran into the kitchen. As I grabbed the pan and placed it on a cool burner, I fumbled with the button to turn the stove off. "Dammit," I mumbled. "Burnt to hell." I heard a noise behind me, so I turned. Bella was standing there, balancing her weight on her left leg. Her hand was clasped over her mouth, and she was laughing.

"Awwww, you cooked breakfast for me?" she giggled.

"I attempted to cook breakfast for you." I corrected. "Sorry." I picked up the pan-o-burnt bacon and dumped it in the trash can.

She started laughing again. "It's okay, Edward. It's the thought that counts." She bent down balancing all of her weight on one foot and grabbed the orange juice off the floor. "I'll just drink some orange juice and take some pain medication for my head and my foot."

"Where's the medicine? Let me get it for you," I said, stopping her from walking more.

"I keep some in the cabinet left of the sink so I don't have to run up to my bathroom if the need strikes me." The bottle opened easily, and I turned around to drop two tablets into her awaiting hand. Leaning back against the counter, I crossed my arms over my chest.

"So, last night was fun," I stated. She shook her head but stayed silent. She popped the pills into her mouth and took a drink of her juice. _Was she embarrassed? Did she regret it? Did she even remember?_

I thought for a second before asking my next question. I didn't want to upset her by reminding her of what happened. "Who was that guy? The one that...you know?"

"Ummm...that was Jake," she muttered quietly, wiping the corner of her mouth after taking another drink.

"Who's Jake?" I tried to act nonchalant about it, though I was incredibly interested.

"He's an ex of mine." She diverted her eyes and took another sip. "He and I...well...we were engaged to be married, but I broke it off."

I was stunned by what she said and unconsciously walked closer to her. "Why did you break it off?" As soon as the question left my mouth I knew I'd crossed a line. "Oh, I'm so sorry. That's none of my business. Forget I asked." I threw my hands up in front of me and waved them from side to side, like I was erasing the question.

"No, it's alright," she said waving her hands up in the air as well. "I came home from my bachelorette party, which innocently involved me and my best friends playing drinking games at Rosalie's house by the way, to find him in the throes of passion with the stripper – in our bed. She was and still is the biggest slut the American Northwest has ever seen. I kicked him out immediately and threw his stuff out on the lawn. Ended up finding out that they'd been sleeping together for over a year behind my back." She took a deep, ragged breath like she was about to cry. I didn't want to make her cry.

"Bella, are you okay?" I asked concernedly. It was a stupid question. Of course, she wasn't okay. Her fiance cheated on her, and it obviously still affected her. I placed my hand on her upper arm for comfort.

"I'm fine. I like to think of myself as a strong person, but it really had an effect on me. It doesn't help that I see both of them all over town. And, it doesn't help that he's the son of my dad's best friend Billy. Every function he's there."

I couldn't help but ask, "When did this happen?"

She scrunched her eyes together in thought. "Five months ago? Yeah, five months." She nodded taking the final swig of her juice.

"Wow, that wasn't long ago." I remembered five months ago like it was yesterday, and I wanted to forget about it just as much as she did.

"Nope," she agreed.

"Do you still love him?" I readied myself for the answer that I didn't want to hear. Of course she still loved him. It hadn't been that long. And, it's not like she was the one that had checked out of the relationship long before it was officially dead.

She was quick to jump in to answer that question. "Oh, hell no! We'd had our problems, obviously. He'd just decided to take his dick to greener pastures without telling me it was over. Once I found out about how long it had been going on, all loving feelings for him flew out the door just like his clothes." I released the breath that I'd been keeping in. Why it mattered what her feelings for him were, I didn't know, but it _did_ matter.

"I saw your face last night after he grabbed you. What did he say?"

A sadness overtook her features and she slumped her shoulders. "He said that I shouldn't worry because he didn't want me anymore and he just wanted a reminder of what he's not missing." She closed her eyes and dipped her head as if she was ashamed of something. "That's just another instance where my self-esteem takes a hit. I start to think again about what I had maybe done wrong."

I closed the distance between us and placed my fingers under her chin and lifted her face to look into my eyes. "Bella, you are an amazing, loving person. You have me under a spell, and we haven't even known each other for 24 hours. He's not worth your troubles or your tears. Don't let his words hurt you. Please know that there's someone that cares." _Someone that cares._ I care. I care a great deal about you.

She looked at me for a second before murmuring, "Why did you kiss me last night?"

I released her chin and stepped back, not expecting that question. I hesitated before answering. Was she mad? My hand found the back of my neck and started rubbing it. "I couldn't stop myself. I saw the pain in your face, and I wanted to wipe it away. I can't explain my draw to you. Nothing was going through my head other than I needed to get to you."

"Oh," she said plainly. "And, why did you kiss me while we were dancing?" Her eyebrows were knitted together on her forehead.

The memory of the dance flashed through my mind. I remembered that I didn't feel that she was close enough. To remedy that, I pulled her arms around my neck to feel her against my body. Her every curve. Her expanding chest with every breath. I remembered the feel of her skin under my fingers. She was soft and smooth. I remembered looking in her eyes and knowing exactly what I wanted.

"I didn't want to kiss you again without your consent. I needed to ask you before I took that chance once more. I was lucky enough that you didn't slap me the first time." I let out a little laugh when she smiled. I re-closed the distance that I had put between us and placed my hands on either side of her on the counter. Her breathing grew heavier with my close proximity, and it fanned across my face. "After I kissed you, though, I couldn't seem to get close enough. I was losing control of everything around me. I forgot there were other people on the dance floor. All I saw and felt was _you_. I wanted _you_. I needed _you_. _You_ did something to me last night that left me dazed."

"And now?" she asked breathlessly.

"Now?" I asked. "I'm more mesmerized than I ever was. I'm more intrigued than I've ever been by anyone. I'm not sure I can control myself around you."

"Then don't," she whispered as she softly placed her hands on my chest.

"Bella, is it okay if I kiss you again?"

"You don't have to ask, Edward." Her tongue flicked out, wetting her lips, inviting me in.

I leaned my face down to her slowly and felt the spark between our lips connect before they even touched. I angled my head and finished my descent as my lips brushed hers like a caress. She hummed at the sensation, while her hands slid around to my back and pulled me to her chest. I opened my mouth to her and she did the same. Our tongues touched tentatively as if this were our first kiss. Essentially it was our first sober kiss. Neither of us were impaired by alcohol or rage.

I lifted my hand and pulled her even tighter to me as her hands traveled up my back and tangled in my hair. She found my weakness. "Mmmmmmm," I moaned into her mouth and she responded by shoving her tongue deeper. I lifted her off the floor to bring her even with me and she wrapped her legs around my waist. The room seemed stifling all of a sudden. It was too closed in. I needed more space because I felt like I was going to explode. I stumbled out of the kitchen in search of what my body needed.

"Oh, Bella," I groaned. "What the hell are you doing to me?"

"I'm kissing you, Edward," she said, in all seriousness, tightening her legs around me.

"I'm not talking about that," I gasped as she released my mouth and found the spot under my ear with her tongue. My other weakness. I wound my fingers in her hair as I pressed her back up against the nearest wall. My knees felt like they were going to give out on me. I needed leverage. She had some kind of power over me.

"What are you talking about then?" she gasped as my mouth and tongue found the hollow of her neck.

"You...you're taking over my every thought. You...are my every want and desire. You...have done this to me and you haven't even been trying." I rasped out between kisses as her hands found the hem of my shirt and lifted it up my back. She dug her fingers into my skin, and I groaned with approval. My mouth found hers again while my right hand traveled up her thigh and made its way around to her perfect ass. My fingers briefly touched her heat, and I felt her buck into my hips.

"Edward," she moaned. It was a plea more than anything. It was a plea for me to fulfill my desires...with her.

I pulled my head back from her lips that were devouring me to look into her eyes. I pressed my forehead to hers and gasped for air. "Bella, are you sure?" All progress was halted as I waited for her answer. I sure as hell didn't want to overstep my boundaries and screw up with her. She stroked her hands through my hair and stared at me with hooded eyes. Then, she leaned around and, with the most seductive voice I've ever heard, spoke into my ear.

"Take me to bed, Edward."

Without hesitation I pulled back off the wall and wrapped my arms around her waist securing her to my upper body. She tightened her legs around my hips even more and ground into my very prominent hardness as I headed for the stairs. I grunted from the pleasure and crashed my lips to hers again making it difficult to watch where I was going. We were all moans and gasps and whispers of desires. My hand reached for the banister-

_Ding-Dong_

I stopped at the bottom step and both of our heads snapped to the front door.

"Who the _fuck_ could that be?" Bella panted.

"What time is it, love?" I asked, with a hunch at who was at the door. My lungs were aching for oxygen still.

Her eyes traveled around the room and settled on a clock on the wall behind me. "Nine-thirty," she said.

I groaned. "It's Marcus," I said, my head dropping to her shoulder in defeat.

"Who's Marcus?"

"My driver. He drove us all home last night."

"Oh," she said, emotionless.

"He's here to take me back to the hotel and then to brunch with the director and producer." I looked at her and felt a sudden rush of sadness. "I'm sorry."

_Ding-Dong. Ding-Dong._

"Son of a bitch!" I grumbled. Bella released her legs from my waist, and I carefully lowered her to the step making sure I didn't hurt her foot. I leaned in and kissed her with all of the passion I could muster given the situation.

_Ding-Dong._

"Ugh," I growled into her mouth. "I'm fucking coming, Marcus!" I bellowed over my shoulder. I bent back down to Bella and whispered exasperatedly, "You'd think he was my mother." She smiled, and I kissed her chastely before stepping back. "When can I see you again?"

"I'm working today if you want to stop by."

"You don't get the day off on Sunday?" I asked right before I stumbled over the rug while I walked backward toward the front door.

She giggled at my misstep. "I'm the boss, remember? I set my own hours. Plus, Sunday is my favorite day of the week to work. Come by around 4:00."

"Okay," I smiled. "I'll see you then." I was stopped suddenly when the doorknob met my back. "Ouch!" I yelped and reached around to rub the sore spot. Bella's hand was over her mouth hiding the grin that spread across her cheeks.

"Go!" she laughed. "Before you hurt yourself even more."

"Alright, alright."

"Oh, and Edward," she yelled out, stopping me right before I turned the knob. "Thanks for taking care of me last night and this morning."

"For you, anything," I paused to smile at her. "Bye, Bella. See you at four."

I opened the door behind me and stumbled out. After shutting the door, I turned around to face a snarling Marcus who was glaring at me from his leaned position at the car.

"What?" I asked.

"We need to leave now if you plan on making it to your meeting."

"Fine. I'm ready." He walked to the back door and opened it for me. I slid in and leaned my head back recalling everything that had happened over the past 18 hours. I smiled and rubbed my eyes. _This is going to be interesting._

_

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Head on over to my profile for a picture of Bella's bedroom.**

**So, how did you like it? What do you think so far? Leave me a review! I will worship you forever!**


	4. Chapter 4 Connecting the dots

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**I wanted to send a shout out to all of my worldwide readers! I've got quite a few of you! Twenty-eight countries represented, to be exact. And, thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome. Keep it up!**

**This is one of my favorite chapters I've written (13 are done so far). You're going to be introduced to a few more characters now. Things are starting to happen.  
**

**Rated M: angst, language, drama and lemony goodness...eventually.**

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**Connecting the Dots**

I had enough time when we arrived back at the hotel to take a shower and clear my head as best as I could. I may or may not had to take care of a little problem again. We pulled up to the restaurant _Laurent_ five minutes early, and I looked for my party. They weren't here yet, so I walked up and took a seat at the bar.

"What can I get you?" the bartender asked.

I scanned their brunch menu for any specials. "Your house mimosa sounds great."

A few moments later a hand with shockingly red painted fingernails laid a cocktail napkin down on the bar and placed the mimosa on top of it. "Thank you," I stated.

"It is my _pleasure_."

I lifted the drink to take a sip when I noticed something written on the napkin.

_Jessica_

_555-6207_

I shook my head in disgust. It never fails. Standing up from the bar, I slapped a $10 bill down on a wet spot on the counter, and I walked away with my drink, leaving the napkin where it was. As I strode, I saw the director come in the door and look around.

"Emmett, hey man," I said, as I shook his hand. "Aro isn't here, yet."

"I already spoke with him," he said. "He's actually not going to make it. He's not feeling well. I figured we could still go over the shooting schedule. We finalized it last night with the production company."

"Sounds great."

"Do you want to get a table by the bar?"

"No!" I exclaimed, just a little too loudly.

"Female bartender?" Emmett asked, a smirk on his face.

"How'd you guess?" I laughed.

"I see a table in the corner. It's big so we could lay out the documents and the schedules. Come on." We walked to the table and sat down. A waitress approached the table a few seconds later and gave us our menus. I took one and nodded my thanks.

When she returned I ordered the smoked salmon and capers bagel and the fresh fruit salad with the honey-lime dressing. Emmett enjoyed a hearty meal, so he ordered eggs benedict with home fries and lemon pancakes for dessert. We returned the menus and began our discussion.

"Okay, we've got it all lined up and plane tickets are booked. First day of shooting starts in four weeks. We need you back here though in three. We need to do makeup testing and finalize wardrobe. Victoria is flying in the same night as you, just different flight. We'll shoot for two months here in Forks and then we'll head back to LA for studio shots. We'll have a couple of weekends off those two months. I have the dates on the schedule here. You're free to go wherever. I know you have two movies you're promoting right now. We've worked it out with your manager Jane on when you need to be at events for those. You've got the LA premier this Friday, right?"

"Yeah," I croaked as my throat closed. I was going back to Los Angeles tomorrow at noon. In the time I had spent with Bella, I hadn't thought about that. I was going to be gone for three weeks. When I came back, I'd only be here for two months before I was gone forever. The movie was not one to have a sequel, either. I had two months to be with her. I didn't know if I could do that to her. She had to know the nature of my job, though. She had to know I would be leaving eventually.

"Edward?" I looked up, and Emmett was looking at me concerned.

"Sorry," I muttered. "I was just thinking about how I haven't picked out a suit for Friday."

He laughed. "Jane will take care of you."

Our food arrived, and we abandoned the business talk to eat. It was delicious. I was going to bring Bella here for brunch one of my free weekends.

After the food was cleared from the table we got back to business. He gave me a folder of documents that I would need and the plane tickets for my flight out on tomorrow and my flight back in three weeks. Once we were finished with the meeting, we ordered a couple of beers and sat back just to chat.

"We haven't really just gotten to talk since we went home for mom's birthday party six months ago. So, how was filming with Tanya, again? That movie comes out right after we're done filming up here, right?" he asked, taking a pull from his beer.

"Yeah, I'll have that premiere when we go back to LA."

"Well, what about Tanya, bro?"

"Emmett, I really don't want to talk about it."

"Did you dip your stick in the oil pan again?" he asked crudely.

"Jesus, man! Have a little class," I scoffed.

He laughed. "I'll take that as a yes." He then winked at me.

"Ugh, Emmett. I do not want to talk about it."

"I'm guessing it didn't end well."

"There was a slight complication, and it's still haunting me. Let's just leave it at that," I muttered down to the table, not wanting to look up.

He threw his hands up in surrender. "Fine, fine. I'll leave it alone for now, but you can't say something like 'there was a slight complication, and it's still haunting me' and expect me to drop it forever." He reached into his pocket and checked the time on his cell phone. "Hey, I've got to get going. I've got a conference call with the studio in a half hour back at the hotel. By the way, where were you last night? I went to your room and knocked for five minutes. I was hoping to get out of the room and go to a bar or something."

I stilled. I couldn't tell him about Bella. I'd never hear the end of it. "I...uhhh...went out for a few drinks and then just had Marcus drive around for a while." _Stupid, stupid. He'll never believe that._

"Yeah, okay," he said with a smirk. "Go back to the hotel and rest that dick of yours. I knew you looked thoroughly fucked when I saw you. You're always a happy bastard once you've gotten laid."

"I wish," I muttered under my breath.

"What was that?" he asked as he stood and pushed the chair back under the table.

"Nothing, bro." I man-hugged him after I stood. "Hey, we flying back on the same flight tomorrow?"

"Yep, I've arranged to have Marcus drive us both to the airport in Seattle."

I nodded. "Okay, sounds good."

"Bye, Eddie." He turned and walked out. I made a call to Marcus and told him the meeting was over so he could come and get me. I looked at the time and it was just past 1:30. Once Marcus pulled up out front, I had him take me to the hotel. We pulled up to the front entrance and noticed that there were now three photographers. I got out and dipped my head as I pushed my way through them as they yelled at me to look at the camera.

Back in the room I had nothing to do. I wasn't hungry so room service was out of the question, I didn't need another shower, and I still didn't have a new book to read. So, I pulled out my laptop and started browsing the internet, searching my usual websites in search of entertainment. When those were thoroughly exhausted, I opened up my email and started filtering through it all.

Enlarge my penis? _No problem there._

Increase my stamina? _I have to be having sex to increase my stamina!_

Then there were a few letters from fans that had found my email address. I read through them like I always do. They always provide a laugh when I need one. They usually start with, "I'm a normal person, but I love you!" Normal person? Yes, normal people hunt down private and well-guarded email addresses to say they love me. Marriage proposals are the best, though. I always respond 'yes' to those and name a time and place. _Hmmm...wonder if anybody has actually ever shown up?_

After blocking their email addresses, I rubbed by eyes. The three and a half hours of sleep were catching up with me. A little nap wouldn't hurt. I laid back and closed my eyes. As soon as I did, I was thrust back into the darkness of my nightmare.

I watched as the gun was pointed at my face. Looking behind the blonde, I tried to make out what the mass was on the floor. It was small, but I could tell by the shape that it was a person. I begged the blonde to let me lean down and check whoever it was to see if they were okay. I bent down to the ground and crawled to the body while the gun followed my head. I grabbed the shoulder of the person and rolled them toward me as my hand trembled. Long, mahogany hair that once covered the face parted, and I yelled out in terror.

"Bellaaaaaaaaaa!" I shot straight up on the couch, flinging the laptop to the floor. My eyes darted around the room looking for the gun-wielder again. Nothing.

I grabbed my phone. 3:53. "Shit!" I was going to be late. I jumped up and ran to the room phone. I dialed the manager and asked to use the loading entrance again. He complied and said he could meet me downstairs immediately. I called Marcus as I grabbed my hat and sunglasses. He grumbled when I told him I needed him right then.

"Marcus, this is your job. I pay you to drive me wherever I need. Meet me down at the loading dock within the next five minutes." I hung the phone up on him without hearing a reply. He and I needed to talk, but this wasn't the time. Ten minutes later he met us. Making my way up to him I said, "You and I are going to have a few words. I don't know what your problem is, but this had better stop immediately." I got into the seat and he slammed the door behind me. "Take me to Words and Paper bookstore."

When we pulled onto the block, I checked my watch. 4:15, not too bad. I saw there were about 30 cars parked along the street and the parking lot across the street. I wondered what was going on. Marcus dropped me off at the front, and I darted into the store just in case any paparazzi had followed us. As I walked in, I took off my hat and sunglasses so that my eyes could adjust. The scent of paper, ink and leather hit me again. A large crowd stood in the back of the bookstore where I recalled seeing the children's section with their backs to the front entrance where I stood. They all seemed to be adults. A small, female voice spoke softly then, and it was followed by a bunch of tiny little giggles.

Walking up behind the adults, I focused my attention on the woman at the front of the group that faced all of us. It was Bella. "Jesus," I whispered. She was dressed in a Russian-style white tutu and was perched in a large purple velvet wingback chair, her feet and ankles wrapped in white ballet slippers pulled underneath her. She was reading a book to dozens of captivated children. I focused in on the story.

It was about a little girl that dreamed of being a prima ballerina, but she was too clumsy. She was always placed in the back during ballet recitals, but she never gave up. She practiced every night despite the continual rejection and eventually became one of the most famous ballerinas in the world. The story was beautiful and had a wonderful message. At the end, Bella stood up, performed a pirouette, and everyone clapped and cheered including myself. I wondered how she did it when her foot was hurt just a few hours ago.

"Remember girls and boys: never give up on your dreams. If they are important to you, work toward them. It may be difficult and you may want to give up, but push yourself. You will be rewarded in the end," she said. The parents and children clapped again and started thanking Bella before they filed out of the space.

The woman and man in front of me turned.

"Oh, Edward!" Alice exclaimed.

"Hey, Alice," I said, putting my finger up to my lips to signal that she should be quiet.

"Sorry," she whispered. "Forgot."

"It's fine. I'm just going to put my hat back on, though." I placed the cap back on my head and looked back at Bella. She was a magnet for me and absolutely gorgeous. My eyes watched as an adorable little brunette girl in a pink dress walked up to her and attempted to do a pirouette like she had done. Bella marveled at her and clapped when the little girl took a bow. Then, I looked in confusion as I saw Bella take a pen from the little girl's mother and sign the inside cover of the book the woman was holding, the same one Bella just read from. _Why is she signing it?_

"Edward," Alice whispered, pulling me out of my staring. "This is my husband Jasper." She motioned to the man standing next to her. I recognized him as the man that stood in the doorway last night because of his curly blonde hair. I extended my hand and shook his.

"I hear you and Bella had quite a night last night," he said, his grip tightening. "You're not going to make me pick up the pieces you leave behind, are you?"

I looked at him in shock. _Who is this guy? Is he her brother?_ "I don't know what you're talking about, Jasper."

"Right," he said, skepticism in his tone. "Watch yourself, actor man." He turned and walked toward the stage that Bella was on without another word. I turned to Alice.

"What the _hell_ was that all about?" I asked, bewildered.

"Oh, ignore him," she waved her hand in the air. "He's a little intense sometimes. He was in the military." I looked at her with question. How did that explain things? She rocked on her heels before continuing. "He was a major in the Army until he got injured. He's a little protective of the people he loves is all. He doesn't want to see them get hurt."

I shook my head somewhat in understanding. She reached back and grabbed my hand all of a sudden surprising me. "Come on. Bella's waiting for you."

I followed behind her. As we approached, I watched a little boy with curly blonde hair run toward Bella and jump into her waiting arms.

"Bella!!!" he crooned and kissed her on the cheek. Her face scrunched up in the cutest little squirm as she hugged him with all of her might.

"Hello, Brandon!" she smiled. "Did you like the story today?"

"It was about a ballerina," he said, pouting. "I'm a boy. There are no boy ballerinas."

"Yes, there are, honey. They're just called something different. But, that's not the point of the story. What do you want to be when you grow up?" she asked, twirling his delicate curls in her fingers.

He pondered the question so much it looked like it hurt. Then inspiration struck. "I want to be my daddy!" He pointed back to Jasper.

"Well, okay. How hard are you going to work to become your daddy, Brandon?"

"Super duper extra hard! He's my hero!" he yelled.

Alice wiped a tear from her eye after what Brandon said. She turned to me. "Bella's something else, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she is. I think I'm hooked," I admitted.

She looked at me and then smiled. "I bet you didn't know the story was hers, did ya?"

My eyes widened, and I looked back at Bella. _She was a famous ballerina?_ That explains the tutu and the pirouette and her message at the end. I knew nothing about ballet, so that explained why I'd never heard her name before. Alice giggled at my expression.

"Okay, mini-me," Jasper said, reaching down to pick up Brandon. Alice stood up on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek again.

"See ya around loverboy," she whispered in my ear.

I smiled. I could see why Bella loved her so much. She seemed like a ball of fun.

She then turned to Bella. "See ya later, Bells."

The three of them left hand-in-hand while I heard Brandon's small voice singing _Frosty the Snowman_. That was odd. It was only the end of August. Shrugging my shoulders, I made my way to Bella and wrapped her up in a hug. "Wow, that was a beautiful story."

"Thank you," she blushed. She reached down and started picking up ribbons and props. I helped her put them in the large wooden trunk next to the chair.

"How's your foot?" I asked.

"Much, much better," she said. "The pain medication worked. It's obviously not broken."

"Show me that pirouette again, then," I said. She looked at me funny, and then performed it. She bowed dramatically afterward while I clapped. "Show me something else."

She swatted my arm. "Edward, don't act so silly."

"I would think that an accomplished ballerina would be more than willing to show off her talent," I said incredulously.

She looked at me funny. "Who told you that?" she asked, tipping her head to the side.

"Alice."

"Alice told you I was a ballerina?" She seemed slightly angry. _Why did it matter if I knew she was a dancer? _It was incredibly sexy.

I didn't want her to be in trouble for telling me, so I tried to play it off. "No, no. She just said that what you read was your story. It wasn't a big deal."

She threw her head back and started laughing loudly.

"What's so funny?" I asked, not understanding the hysteria.

"Edward, I'm not a ballerina. I never was and never will be."

"I'm confused. Why would she tell me that?"

"Because it _is_ my story," she sputtered. "I _wrote_ it. I'm a children's author." Realization hit me, and I started laughing with her.

"Well, that explains it!" I guffawed, slapping my palm to my forehead.

"Explains what?" she asked, still laughing.

"Your house."

She blushed again. "Oh, yeah. That. I figured you probably questioned how I could afford that on my profits from selling books at the store."

"I was just surprised was all."

She slowly cooled her laughing and got sort of a serious look on her face. Her eyebrows knit together, and she swallowed hard. "Well, the secret's out of the bag, Edward. Do you still want me?" She wound her fingers together in front of her, shifting her weight from side to side.

My remaining laughter stopped immediately. "Excuse me? Why would that change anything, Bella? You think I'd be ashamed of you because you're an author? It is most definitely the opposite."

She looked at me nervously and shrugged her shoulders while biting her bottom lip between her teeth. "Well, I just didn't know how you'd take it. I mean...I'm famous. I didn't know if you could handle the pressure." She busted up laughing, unable to keep a straight face anymore.

I wrapped her up in a hug again and laughed with her. "You're funny, Bella Swan."

"Just Bella," she corrected me in a whisper into my ear. The cool air that left her lips sent a shiver down my spine.

"And, Just Edward," I said in return.

We broke our hug, and started toward the front of the store. She walked in front of me, and I couldn't help but check out her cute butt under her tutu as she walked. The tulle didn't cascade down like in dresses; it stuck almost straight out from where it was attached at her hips. Perfect for what I was doing. She turned around and caught me but only rolled her eyes at my ogling.

Several families were still in the store looking at books. "What time do you close?" I asked, leaning on the check-out counter while she messed with the register. She looked at the clock.

"Fifteen minutes."

"You have any plans for tonight?" I wanted to spend the evening wining and dining her.

She rested her elbows on the counter in front of me and leaned forward, grimacing slightly. "Actually, I've got to go pick up Brandon at 7:00 and watch him until about midnight. Jasper is taking Alice out to dinner and a movie."

I shook my head in understanding, disappointed that this was the last night before I'd be leaving. She'd be at work tomorrow when my flight left Seattle for LA. I wasn't going to get to see her for another three weeks.

She must have noticed my face. "I've got two hours before I get him, and...umm...you could come over tonight and hang with us if you'd like. I'm planning on making some macaroni and cheese and putting in a movie."

"What movie are you guys going to watch?" I asked, already having made up my mind to spend the evening with Bella and Brandon. If that's all I got, then I'd take it. Plus, there was always after Brandon went home.

"He's on a Christmas kick right now," she smiled. "It's August and he's singing Christmas carols. He requested _Elf_, so I bought it this morning." _Ding, ding, ding. _Another dilemma explained.

"Excellent choice," I replied. "It's just nice to meet another human that shares my affinity for elf culture." She laughed, recognizing the quote from the movie. I could go on all day with these just to see her smile like that. "Buddy the Elf! What's your favorite color?" "You smell like beef and cheese."

"Stop!" she screamed. "If you start burping next, I'm going to smack you."

"Okay, okay, I'll stop," I laughed as I absentmindedly pulled on the stretchy strap of her tutu with my finger.

She leaned in a little further and placed a small kiss on my lips before she stood up all of a sudden. I looked at her face and became instantly concerned. Her once happy and relaxed features were now tensed and pained. I turned my head to follow her gaze. She was watching a woman with light brown hair whose back was to us. She was scanning the shelves for something.

I turned back to Bella and my heart broke instantly. There was a small tear that had formed in the outer corner of her eye. This woman had done something to her; something that hurt her deeply. My eyes returned to the woman behind us as she turned around. She was familiar. I wracked my brain for only a few seconds before it hit me.

_Jessica_

_555-6207_

_Who was she and what had she done?_

"Jessica," Bella whispered, a quiver in her voice.

Jessica grabbed a book off the shelf and started walking toward the counter before I could get any answers. She plopped it down in front of Bella with a thud. _KAMA SUTRA_ was printed in large gold letters on the front cover. Jessica's eyes left the book and found me on her right.

"Oh, Edward, hi again!" she crooned. She reached into her purse and pulled out a square piece of paper which she placed in my hands. "You accidentally left this on the counter." It was the napkin with her information on it. My eyes darted to Bella. She was looking at the napkin out of the corner of her eye with her head down, a heartbroken expression on her face. I had to fix this before she could jump to too many conclusions.

I immediately handed the napkin back to her. "No, Jessica. I left it there after you placed it under my drink. I hate to hurt your feelings, but I'm not interested." I actually didn't care if this _did_ hurt her feelings. My eyes traveled back to Bella. She looked calmer and reassured. I relaxed slightly. The situation was still highly uncomfortable, though. There was something looming over the two of them. I returned my gaze to Jessica. She was glancing between me and Bella. She looked enraged briefly but she put on a mask to try to cover it before looking back at me.

"That's okay, Edward. I'm taken anyways. Just thought I'd give it a try." She winked at me, and I felt my penis curl up into my body to take cover.

"That'll be $21.45," Bella said quietly. She still wasn't making eye contact.

"Money well spent," Jessica said. "This one had three positions that I haven't tried yet with Jake," she said.

My mind connected the dots as soon as she said his name. This was the stripper that Bella caught in bed with Jake - the biggest slut in the American Northwest. This is why Bella was reduced to tears when she saw her. And, this is why she looked so devastated when Jessica handed me the napkin. She thought I'd wanted her, too. I had to make sure that Bella knew that I figured out what was going on and that I was not interested in the slut.

I walked around to the other side of the counter and wrapped my arms around Bella's waist from behind. She stiffened at my touch. I leaned down and placed a lingering kiss on her exposed shoulder, flicking my tongue out to taste her. She turned her head slowly to look at me. Her eyes were wide at my gesture. I smiled and kissed the tip of her nose in response. She relaxed then and smiled back slightly.

"Excuse me? Can I get my change?" said an acidic Jessica.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Bella stuttered breaking our trance. She reached into the cash register and pulled out the money. Bella put the book in a bag and handed it to her across the counter.

Jessica shook the book in the air, motioning me to look at it. "I'm pretty bendy, Edward. There's some really good positions in this book, you know, if you ever want to try them out." I just stared at her in shock while my arms were still around Bella's waist. What a slut she really was!

"I'm really not very flexible, Jessica. I'd probably pull a muscle," I replied. Jessica huffed and sauntered toward the door. Before she left, she made sure to throw in one more jab, though.

"Nice fucking tutu, Bella. You've still got two months until Halloween, you idiot." Then she slammed the door behind her making me jump.

Bella turned around in my arms. One eyebrow was raised. "You're not very flexible?"

I smirked. "Out of that entire incident, that's all you care about?"

"Well, no, I care about the other things, but is that true?"

I was going to make her sweat for a little while. "I'm sorry about the napkin thing. When I went to Laurent this morning for my brunch, she was the bartender. I asked for a mimosa, and she'd written her number on the napkin she placed under my drink. I swear to you that I stood up the second I saw it and walked away. She didn't bother me the rest of the meeting. I didn't expect to run into her again."

Bella reached up and placed her hand on my cheek. "It's fine, Edward. I believe you. But, you still haven't answered my question."

"I'm guessing that was the stripper that Jake was with in your bed?" I asked.

"You guessed right," she answered. "As I was saying-"

"You didn't mind that I kissed you, did you?" I interrupted.

"Edward!" she scolded, grasping my face between her hands. "You did nothing wrong. I was just surprised you would flaunt it in front of someone that would gladly sell her story to a magazine. Now, fucking answer me. Are you flexible or not?"

I lowered my face so that my lips brushed her ear. "Bella, I can and will fuck you every way known to man. I will make you scream my name as you come. And, you will come, Bella. Multiple times." She gasped. I reached my hand down and smacked her butt for emphasis. "Now finish up so we can get to our date."

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**So, how did you like it? What do you think so far? Jessica is a bitch, right? Leave me a review!  
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**As you'll notice, I'm not writing these Edward/Bella/Edward/Bella/and so on POV's. I'm choosing whichever POV keeps the story going. I also won't be telling you which character it is. There's a reason for that, but you'll just have to keep reading to find out why! :)**

**Make sure you're checking out my profile to see if I've uploaded some new photos, too.  
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_**FOR TEASERS: Follow me on Twitter: parismylove6207  
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**_NEXT CHAPTER UPDATE: Tuesday, around Noon Central  
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	5. Chapter 5 Thirty hours

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**I wanted to send a shout out to all of my worldwide readers! I've got quite a few of you! I'm up to 33 countries represented, to be exact. And, thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome. Keep it up! Also, thanks to the wonderful TeamBellaSwan for trying to get my story out there. I'm calling her my own personal marketing machine.  
**

**Rated M: angst, language, drama and lemony goodness...eventually.**

**CHAPTER FIVE**

**Thirty hours**

I walked away from Bella thoroughly pleased with how I handled Jessica. In a few short minutes, I'd taken the severely diminished Bella-Self-Esteem-Meter and made it explode out the top like one of those fund raising signs when they reach their goal. Another accomplishment: making her completely forget about Jessica and Jake. I twisted my head around to look back at her smiling from ear to ear. It felt good to see her smile, and it felt even better knowing that I put it there.

_Twenty four hours_. I'd known Bella for only 24 short hours. Twenty four hours that I would never take back or change or regret or forget.

I decided that while I was waiting for her to close up shop, I'd look for a new book. I needed one desperately, especially if I was going to enjoy the flight home tomorrow._ Shit. _I needed to tell her. I'd tell her tonight. I didn't want to ruin the next two hours.

Perusing the bookshelves, I found the history section and started browsing. I didn't really know what I was looking for. There wasn't anybody or anything in particular that I was aching to learn about. Over the past two years I'd taken time to read a lot of the classics, and I was ready for something a little different.

I heard the turning of locks behind me and the clanging of plastic on glass. Turning, I saw Bella walking toward me, the closed sign swinging on the door behind her.

"Can I help you find anything in particular, sir?" she asked, clearly playing the part of stranger bookstore owner.

A smile broke across my face. "I'm in search of a good book I've never read before. I've read most of the classics they make you read in school, so I'm going to go ahead and skip those. Something a little different? Maybe something educational without every other word being thee and thou." She laughed at my description.

"Hmmm..." she pondered. "Are you wanting a history book?"

"I'm not against it." I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm really indifferent on the genre." I knew she wouldn't lead me astray and make me read a crap book.

"I think I may have just the thing for you."

She reached behind my shoulder and grasped the ladder, rolling it down the wall of books to the end of the rail. She placed one slipper clad foot up on the ladder, and I ran to her in panic.

"Bella, let me do this. Just tell me where it is."

She swatted my arm away. "There you go being silly again, Edward. I've been doing this for ten years without incident. I'm not a total clutz."

I released her but stood at the bottom of the ladder in case I needed to catch her. Then, I noticed what a great position I was in.

"Hey, Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"I can see up your tutu." I heard a giggle before she shook her butt at me, and I whistled.

"Men..." she grumbled playfully.

I watched as she climbed all of the way to the top of the ladder swinging her hips a little more than normal and grabbed a book that looked old. She carefully made her way back down and handed it to me. _The Jungle_ by Upton Sinclair was printed on the spine.

"Something a little different? Check. Something you've never read before? I'm guessing check. Something educational? Check. History? Check," she said, drawing the sign in the air each time.

"I've never heard of this book before."

"It's one of my favorites," she said. "The story is set in Chicago. It follows an immigrant family and their trials and tribulations of trying to make it in America. It became famous because it exposed the disgusting practices of the meat-packing industry back in the early 1900's and led to federal regulations." She took her index finger and prodded the cover with the tip of it. "This book caused reform in America. Books can be very powerful."

"The meat-packing industry?" I questioned. I was sure it was a good book if she recommended it, but the topic seemed odd.

"Yeah, don't be eating anything when you read it," she grimaced. "Hell, I was a vegetarian for nearly two months after I finished the book. Couldn't even look at meat."

"Sounds..._great_," I teased.

"Read it, Edward," she demanded sternly, giving me the look that all women had perfected. _Were they born with this gift?_

"Okay, okay! So, what are your other favorite books?"

"Hmmm...I like a lot of those "thee" and "thou" classics. _Romeo and Juliet_, for example. I also like _Wuthering Heights_, but I like some newer books, too. The _Harry Potter_ series is pure genius, and I like the message behind _The Rocket Boys_. It was the book and true-life story that inspired the movie _October Sky_." She pointed her finger up in the air and moved it around the perimeter of the room. "I've read all of those books in the top section."

I turned my head and looked around.

"There have to be thousands of books up there," I said, astonished.

"Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it. Like I said, books can be very powerful. Especially the good ones. Those are the good ones."

"If those are the good ones, are these down here the bad ones?" That would seem a little odd to have bad books down where people could reach.

She stretched her hand out and touched some of the shiny jacketed covers with the tips of her fingers. "No, most of these are the recent editions of those books up there." She pointed her finger up toward the books on the top shelves again.

"Well, what are those?" I asked looking up again, puzzled.

"Older, more expensive, prized editions that I've collected over the years. That's a second edition of _The Jungle_ you're holding."

My eyes widened as I held it out in front of me. "Bella, I can't read this one. I'll buy a new version. I don't trust myself." I tried to give it back to her.

"I trust you. Anyways, what good are books if you don't read them? It's sat up on that shelf for too long. Get some use out of it. Plus, I'm holding out for a first edition...someday I'll find one," she said, with a wistful look on her face.

"Well, how much do I owe you?" I asked.

She turned to me with her mouth open. "You will not be paying me for that book, Mr. Cullen."

"I will not take it without paying you," I countered. "How much?"

"First, you aren't taking it. You're borrowing it. Those books aren't for sale anyways. I only loan those out. And, second, you don't want to know."

"How much?" I prodded again. "You can't leave me hanging on something like that."

"Nope," she said while reorganizing the shelves in front of her.

"Bella..."

"Fine!" she huffed, stomping her foot. "I bought that book two years ago at auction for $3500."

"Jesus Christ, Bella!" I held the book out in front of me again like it was going to bite. "No freaking way am I reading this one!" I turned around and headed toward the ladder to put it back.

In a flash, she ran around the bookshelf and threw herself in front of the ladder before I got there, essentially blocking me from getting on. She sat her ass down on a step and refused to move. I could easily lift her up and move her out of the way, but this could be fun.

"Bella Swan, move your tutu-covered ass out of my way."

"Not on your life, Cullen," she smirked, using only my last name. God, that was sexy.

I leaned in, trying to intimidate her by putting my arms on the handrails on either side of her head. "Bella..." I said in a stern tone.

She leaned closer narrowing her eyes, obviously not intimidated at all. "Edward..."

And then she shot up, threw her arms around my neck and locked her lips with mine taking me totally by surprise. I was knocked back into the bookshelf behind me, making it wobble from the force, and I had to throw my free hand back to catch it.

"Holy crap!" she screamed as she jumped off me, throwing her hands over her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," I assured her. "Don't worry." She adjusted the books that slid out of their perfect alignment while I still looked at the book in my hands.

"Please just let me put this one back," I begged. "I'd like to buy a paperback."

"Go ahead," she said, throwing her hands up in the air in surrender. "But, you're not paying for it." She walked to another shelf and pulled out a new copy. "You bought all of our drinks last night, so consider this $6 book partial reimbursement."

"Deal." I climbed up the ladder and replaced the book.

"Hey, Edward?"

"Yeah?" I replied, as I took one step down.

"I can see your butt, too."

I looked down at the floor to see a smiling Bella at the base of the ladder.

I quirked my eyebrow. "Like what you see?"

"It'll do." She winked at me.

I finished my descent and wrapped her in my arms. "It better," and then I leaned down and kissed her properly.

"So, how did you come to own this bookstore?" I asked when I released her and walked around looking at the books again.

"When my Grandma Marie passed away, she left it to me. This had been her store for forty years. She was the one that taught me to love books so much. She was such an amazing person."

"How old were you when she passed away?" I asked, while tipping my head sideways to look at the spines of the Paris coffee table books.

"I was 18, so almost eight years ago." She laced her fingers together and started playing with them.

"That's a young age to own a business."

"It definitely was a young age. I thought I was too young. I didn't know what to do. My dad offered to help me sell it, but it felt wrong. There were too many memories here. Besides leaving me the business, she left me a hefty amount of money, so I was able to go to college and get my degree and keep it open at the same time. I came home every weekend and opened it on Saturdays only for the three years I was at Seattle University."

"Wow, you completed your degree in three years and drove home every weekend? I'm impressed."

She smiled sheepishly. "I was determined to get my degree and get to the good part of life. I really wanted to settle into my writing."

"How old were you when you published your first book?" I was thoroughly interested.

"I was 19. I actually published three books that year. I'd had them all written for at least a year. One of my college professors loved them so much he lent it to his publisher friend, and they signed me the next week."

"How many books do you have published?"

"The one I read today is my ninth."

_Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had_

"Oops, hold on," Bella said. "That's Alice on my cell." Alice's ring tone was "You're My Best Friend" by Queen. That was kind of cute. She ran over to the counter and started rummaging through her purse for her phone.

_I've been with you such a long time_

_You're my sunshine_

_And I want you to know_

_That my feelings are true_

_I really love you_

_You're my best friend_

She finally located it and answered. "What's up, best friend?" she said in a cheerful tone. It was so subtle, but I saw disappointment flash across her features while Alice talked. "Oh...well, yeah...sure. We're still at the store if you want to bring him over now...yeah, okay...it's no problem...don't worry about it....Okay, see you in a minute." She hit end.

"Change of plans," Bella said. "A bride called freaking out about a dress that Alice is designing for her, and she's needing to go to the shop before her and Jasper's date. She just thought it would be easier to drop him off now since she didn't know how long she's going to be."

"That's okay. We'll just start our kid's night early." I never let on but my heart sank a little. I had things planned for these two hours. Fun things.

Bella went into the bathroom to change into her regular clothes while I waited for Alice, Jasper and Brandon. They were in the car on the way over already when she called.

I saw them pull up, and Bella wasn't back yet, so I went to the front door to unlock the three locks. Alice got out of the car and grabbed Brandon from the backseat. He was blubbering and screaming; his face so red it was almost purple and tears coming down in sheets on his face. _Oh boy._

I opened the door wide, and she walked in and set him on the couch. Kneeling down to be at his level, she started trying to calm him.

"Baby boy, you are my life and my soul, but mommy _has_ to leave you with Bella for a few hours tonight."

"Bu....uuuuu...uuuuuut, mooooooooooooommyyyyyyyyy!" he wailed between hiccups for air.

"Brandon, I love you. Know that I'll be thinking about you all night. Between you and your daddy, I barely have time to think about anybody else because I love you both so so much." She wiped his tears and kissed his forehead.

She looked back to her son. "You're watching _Elf_ tonight, right?"

"Yeah," he hiccuped, rubbing his eyes.

"You know how he has to come up with a song for his dad when he first meets him?"

He shook his head.

"How about you come up with your own song and sing it to daddy and me tomorrow morning on your way to preschool."

"Okay," he agreed.

She looked back to me. "Where's Bella?"

"She went to the bathroom to change, but that was several minutes ago. I don't know what's taking so long."

"Okay, well could you tell her that I'll call her when we're home. She said she'd be happy to bring him back to our house because we're planning on drinking a little wine with dinner, and she didn't want us driving that far, especially not with him in the car. We shouldn't be any later than 11 or 12."

"Sure, no problem."

She bent in and kissed Brandon on the head. "Be good." She stood up and walked toward the door but stopped when she got to me. "You can be as naughty as you want to be." I couldn't help the surprised laugh that came out of me.

"Alice!" We both turned our heads to see Bella standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. "Don't scare him!"

Alice plastered on an innocent face. "What did I do?" She smiled and so did Bella. She headed for the exit and yelled back, "Call ya later, sister! Remember what I told you, Edward! Love you, Brandon." Then she shut the door.

"Sorry about that," Bella said.

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her temple. "For what? Alice is wise. I think I'll listen to her more often." I tightened my arms around her when she started squirming. We both stopped when we heard a little throat clearing.

"Excuse me, but I'm hungry and you are supposed to feed me," declared a tiny voice from the couch.

"Well," I said, understanding who was going to dictate our evening. "He told us, didn't he?"

Bella broke away and went to grab his hand. "Let's get you fed, then." I relocked the front door and shut off the left five switches before we walked out the back to climb in Bella's car. She'd put in a booster seat for him sometime during the day. With a push of a button, out popped Van Morrison and in popped a Christmas CD. I couldn't help but laugh.

"It's best to support them and let them express themselves when they're young," she said, in response to my laugh. "We all love him to pieces, so we go along with the Christmas thing. It's just a passing phase. He probably won't even care about it once the holiday rolls around. We just don't want him to feel different because of his interests."

I felt like punching myself in the balls. Hard. "Bella, please forgive me. I admit that I thought it was kind of odd, but it's really quite adorable. I promise I'll try to watch my laughing about it."

She reached over and grabbed my hand, and I squeezed hers before lifting it to my lips. I smiled while I watched the smile I loved so much form across her face. We spent the remaining 15 minutes singing Rudolph, Frosty and Jingle Bells. I substituted Bella for Bells, and eventually Brandon caught on and sang it that way, too.

Once we got to the house, Bella took him into her living room and turned on the television. "Can you sit in here and watch TV for a little while so I can make the macaroni and cheese?" His mind was already devoted to Diego, so we just let him be. I followed her in so that I could help. Looking in her pantry, I asked where I could find the box of Easy Mac.

"Easy Mac?" she asked from the stove. "Oh, Edward. I make mine from scratch...well, except for the noodles. Just get the bag of macaroni on the second shelf." I grabbed the bag and tossed it in my hand while I walked over to the stove. She already had a pot of water on waiting for it to boil. She grabbed the bag and ripped it open, pouring them in the water. "I never know why you have to wait for the water to boil with pasta. It gets the same results if you put them in cold water at the beginning."

Once stirred, she grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the refrigerator. In my hands appeared a gallon of milk. Then heavy cream, three different kinds of shredded cheese and a block of Velveeta. My arms were overflowing. She straightened up and smiled. "I knew there was a reason to keep you," and then she patted my cheek just like she did last night when she was drunk. It was kind of an endearing gesture.

I waddled over to the counter next to the stove and dropped the ingredients into a neatly contained pile. The water was starting to boil, but it was going to be awhile before we could strain the noodles.

"So, I figured after we ate dinner tonight we could all crowd on the couch to watch the movie," she said, drying her hands after rinsing them in the sink.

"Can we snuggle?" I asked batting my eyes.

"Of course we can," she smiled.

I pushed my way off the counter and put my arms on either side of her just like we had been this morning. My head leaned down the second hers stretched up. We couldn't help ourselves. I always wanted to be near her. Once I'd kissed her the first time in the bar last night, it was like a floodgate had been opened. I craved her lips. Hers were so soft and melted perfectly with mine. We moved in synchronization, knowing the next move of the other before they even made it. And, when our tongues met, they didn't wrestle for position. They played and stroked each other like lovers that had been doing this for years.

She wound her arms up around my neck and raised herself up on her toes to get closer. As I put my arms around her, we both heard another little throat clearing. We broke our kiss quickly to step away from each other knowing we'd been caught. I had to walk around to the other side of the island to adjust myself.

"Bella, I'm thirsty," he said.

She cleared her throat and wiped off her lips. "What would you like to drink, little guy?"

"Hot Chocolate!" he exclaimed. I held back my laughter this time and only smiled.

"I don't think I have any mix, buddy. It's not yet winter."

"Oh...well, what about juice?"

"I have orange. Is that okay?"

"Yeah!" he yelled, throwing up his hands. She reached into the cabinet and pulled out a sippy cup. Once filled, she took him back into the living room and changed the channel to something different.

When back in the kitchen, she opened a cabinet door and rummaged through the shelves looking for the strainer. The noodles were done. "Can you open up all of the packages of the ingredients while I drain these?" she asked, picking up the pot and dumping the boiling noodles into the metal strainer bridged across the sink basin.

"Sure," I said. We added in the various dairy products and she taste-tested my spoonfuls until it was just perfect. I pulled down three bowls from the upper cabinet and filled them with a big scoop of the creamy macaroni and cheese. The rest went into a serving bowl to be placed on the table just in case we wanted more.

I called Brandon in to the dining room table and we sat down for dinner.

"Oh, my God, Bella," I groaned after my first bite. "This blows Easy Mac out of the water." My eyes closed so that I could savor the morsel. "I wish I wasn't so inept or just plain lazy when it came to cooking. I'd make it this way every time."

"No worries. I'll just make it for you," she said. I opened my eyes and just looked at her for about 10 seconds._ Does she not realize that I have to leave? I'm going to break her heart._

Thoughts began swirling through my head about us. What was going on? Here we sat eating dinner with a little boy just like we were a family. We sang Christmas songs in her Volvo. She had specifically told me tonight that she was going to keep me. We couldn't not kiss each other when we were in close proximity. But, I was going to leave eventually. I was leaving Forks early tomorrow morning to make it to Seattle in time for the flight. And, once I came back, I was going to be gone again permanently two months later. This was such a huge mistake. We were getting deeper and deeper, more committed with each touch or kiss. She was going to hurt when I left. I was going to hurt.

But then I focused back at Bella and the way she smiled at Brandon and ruffled his hair as he ate like a mother would do. I saw a future there that I'd never counted on or even considered seriously. I was never opposed to getting married, but I'd also never thought I'd find the one person I couldn't live without while I was in this business. There were too many fake people or people just trying to get with me to say they had. I knew Bella wasn't one of those people, though. She was genuine and loving and caring. Maybe this wasn't a mistake. Maybe this was supposed to happen.

With a shake of my head, I tried to push away my feelings and just enjoy the evening. Once we were finished, I gathered up the bowls and silverware to take them to the kitchen. Bella took Brandon back to the living room and settled him in for the movie. I heard her tell him that we were going to clean up and then we'd be in to watch it.

She came back in and took over rinsing the dishes. My new job was to put them into the dishwasher.

"So, what were you thinking about a while ago?" she asked, catching me off guard. "You were spacing for about five minutes."

I hesitated looking for the right answer. "Oh...just some stuff."

"Do you want to talk about it?" she questioned. It wasn't demanding. It was an invitation to talk to her.

"Ummmm...I don't really know. It's just crap that's running through my head. Some things I've got to figure out."

"Does it involve me?" she asked quietly.

I sighed. "Yeah, it does," I answered softly, unwillingly.

"Well, I'm here if you decide you want to talk. If you need my help, don't ever hesitate to ask."

She picked up the large serving bowl and put it under the water to rinse.

"Bella..." I said, pausing because I didn't know how to say this without causing her pain. She turned to me with the wet bowl in her hands, and I decided I should just get it out in the open. "I'm leaving tomorrow morning." I watched as her face fell into a blank stare and then her fingers released the glass bowl she was holding. It was if her strength was gone. It crashed loudly to the floor and shattered around our feet, the sound ricocheting around the room mingling with the running water and cartoons in the living room...the only noises that could be heard anymore.

She threw her hands over her mouth and yelled, "Oh, no!" as I bent down immediately and started picking up the big pieces carefully so as not to cut myself on the sharp edges. She leaned down and started to reach for the glass, but I grabbed her wrist.

"No, Bella, let me get this. Take a step back carefully. Don't step on any." As she stood back up and took a step back I noticed she had three pieces of glass stuck in her right leg and the wounds were bleeding pretty heavily. I heard fast footsteps behind me and turned swiftly as Brandon came barreling into the room to find out what the noise was. "Stop!" I yelled, throwing up my hands. His eyes filled with tears immediately, and he took off back toward the living room. I turned back to the shattered glass and hung my head. Not only was Bella crushed, so was this little boy. Both were innocent, and I was the asshole.

"I'm so sorry, Bella. I've ruined this evening. I've ruined a lot of stuff, actually." I looked up to her, and she was gone. I scanned the kitchen and she wasn't anywhere in sight. I wanted to scream and yell and punch something for the clusterfuck this evening had become. Instead, I fell to the ground, and banged my head on the cabinet door a few times before I decided to start cleaning up the mess.

I picked up the biggest pieces and filled a paper bag I found under the sink first. Then, I found the broom in the pantry and swept the floor before calling it good. One last sweep of my hand on the floor had told me I got it all. I put away the broom and put the bag on the counter before I left to find the two other occupants of the house so that I could clean up that mess.

The house was silent as I searched around downstairs to no avail. Each room was empty. Resigned that they weren't down there, I walked upstairs and went into her bedroom looking for them there. Nobody. I found myself walking over to the windows to look outside at the blue-tinged sky. It was twilight, my favorite time of night.

Looking down, I saw them both laying on a lounge on her deck. He was curled into her chest and she was rubbing his back. Sighing at the sadness I saw emanating from them, I made my way downstairs and proceeded out to the deck. They were both a wreck. My asinine self had caused this. Brandon was crying still and Bella had tears of her own in her eyes. Taking inspiration from Alice, I bent down to be at his level.

"Brandon? Buddy?" I whispered. "I'm sorry I yelled. I wasn't mad at you. You did nothing wrong at all. I just didn't want you to get hurt. I promise I wasn't yelling at you. I was just trying to get your attention before you stepped on any glass." He nodded his head. I rolled him over on the lounge and rubbed my hand on his head. "Forgive me?" I asked.

He nodded his head again.

"Thank you."

Bella rubbed his back one more time and said, "Can you give us a couple of minutes, Brandon? Can you go back inside to the living room and watch a little more television?" He nodded again wordlessly. I stood up and opened the door for him back inside before shutting it again.

She stayed curled up on the lounger, so I crawled in next to her and pulled her against my chest.

"Bella, love, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I've had the most amazing time with you, and I hated to even think about it ending." She sniffled into my shirt. "I honestly forgot all about it until this morning when my producer reminded me. I was too caught up in _us_ that it had slipped my mind."

My heart was hammering in my chest as I paused to run my hand down her back. "There is an _us_, Bella. I don't care how many miles are between us, _us_ we will remain if you will still have me." _Please still have me, Bella._

She rubbed away a tear before she spoke. "I'll never get to see you, Edward. You're leaving."

Her statement made me realize that the situation was never discussed past me leaving tomorrow. "That's not true. I'm coming back in three weeks."

Her head jerked up.

"We're still filming here. We start in four weeks, but they need me back in three."

"Really?" she asked, her mood elevated.

"Yeah, I'll be here for a whole two months-" and I cut myself off after I saw her face fall back to being sad again.

"Hey," I said. I put my finger under her chin and lifted her eyes back to mine. I looked deep into the chocolate brown and saw my life in front of me. She was my life and my future. This was insane, but it felt so right; so natural. I wasn't afraid of this feeling. There was no reason to be afraid.

"I want to make this work somehow, Bella. I need to try. I can't explain the draw I have to you. When we're in a room...I...I can't stay away from you. I have no control over it. My body automatically goes to yours, orienting myself around you. And...I always feel the need to kiss you. It's like oxygen. Why do I need to teach myself how to breath again when I'm around you? It's been just a little over a day since I met you, and...it feels like I've known and needed you my entire life. I _have_ needed you my entire life-"

"But what if when you go back to LA you find someone else?" she interrupted. "How far will you pull me down? I...I just don't...I'm not sure I can take another heartbreak, Edward."

"I'm not planning on breaking your heart," I told her. It was the truth. I didn't want to hurt her any more than I already had. And, I didn't want to hurt her the way Jake had. There was no way I could do that. It just wasn't feasible to me in that moment looking down at her that I could ever want another.

"Nobody sets out in a relationship planning on breaking the other person's heart," she whispered. Her heart had been severely broken before, and maybe I had been the person that was mending it.

"I can't promise you that I won't, Bella. I wish I could. Just know that I felt something instantly when I met you yesterday. And, when I saw you at the bar with Jake, it all came to me very clearly what I needed to do. There was no hesitation. It just felt _right_. I know you feel it, too."

"I do," she whispered, just barely loud enough for me to hear.

"Can we try to make this work?" I asked, begging her with my eyes that she wasn't even looking at anymore. _Please say yes. Please don't deny me this. Please let us try. _The length of time between my question and her answer felt like an eternity. My entire future depended on her answer. But, when she answered, I felt my life fall back into place again.

"Okay," she said simply. I smiled and kissed her softly on her lips, not wanting to push her too far. I understood tonight was tough for her. It was for me, too. She was willing to try, and that's all I needed because I knew that it could work. No, it would work.

I sat up and grabbed her hand to pull her up as she patted down her hair that had become statically charged from the cushions. My hand found the small dip in her back, and we walked back inside.

"You ready to watch _Elf_?" she asked Brandon. The enthusiasm for the evening was gone from her.

"Yeah!" he roared. He had mostly gotten over being sad, and I was grateful. I really didn't want to make him cry. It was heartbreaking to watch his face scrunch up that way. She stuck in the DVD and grabbed the remote.

She laid down on her side on the couch and Brandon laid with his back to her chest. They had bonded tonight after my stupidity. Lonely, I sat on the opposite end and grabbed her legs to put in my lap. As the movie started, I started to rub her feet. My thumbs smoothed through her heel up along the graceful arch and out at the ball of her foot. It was the least I could do to give her a sense of calm. I knew she was probably still thinking about what happened and what was going to happen. I'm sure she was even doubting her decision to give us a try.

Out of pure need to touch her, I took my hand and ran it up her ankle and then her shin.

"Ouch!" we both yelled at the same time as she jerked her leg back. I looked down and noticed that she still had the glass shards in her leg, and I'd just cut my hand on them and pushed them into her leg further.

"Are you okay?" I asked. Her cuts looked painful.

"I'd forgotten they were there. I think I'm okay," she answered. "The glass just got shoved deeper in, though."

"Stay here. I'll get a towel and clean this up," I told her. I carefully placed her feet on the couch and ran into the kitchen to rinse my hand and look for glass that may have transferred off of her. I didn't see any, so I dried the cut and put a bandage over it from the cabinet that had the pain medication. I'd remembered seeing some in there. With the box of bandages and a towel, I made my way back into the living room.

She sat up slightly, and I turned on the side table lamp for a better view of the damage. With careful fingers, I picked out all of the glass that I could find and cleaned the area with the wet towel. After it dried I put bandages over each of her cuts.

I had been so focused on my work that I hadn't been paying any attention to the movie or Bella and Brandon. I looked over at her when I was done to see that she was silently crying looking at me. Her lip was quivering and her eyes glistened with hundreds of unshed tears. Was she in pain? Was she wanting out of our relationship? It would be too crushing if that was what she wanted.

'Bella...' I mouthed. Could I say what I wanted to say to her? I knew it to be true, but was it the right time?

She mouthed a shaky 'thank you' to me before I could get the words out, and I nodded my head to let her know I'd heard her appreciation for taking care of her cuts. I lifted her leg carefully with my hands and kissed each of her bandages and the top of her bruised foot from the bat injury earlier this morning.

She had Brandon turn around and put his head down toward my end of the couch so that she could readjust herself and put her head in my lap instead. I carefully ran my fingers through her hair like I'd done in the car, and we watched the rest of the movie, only laughing at the really funny parts. Tonight just wasn't a night for a comedy after all. Brandon fell asleep before the end of the movie, and Bella and I ended up just sitting there in silence looking at a blue screen for over an hour before her cell phone rang.

_Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had_

I grabbed the phone off the table before it could stir Brandon too much.

"Hello?" I whispered.

"_Hey, Edward. Is he asleep?" _Alice asked.

"Yeah. Are you guys home?"

"_Yeah we're home, so you can bring him back. Thanks for doing this."_

"It's no problem. We'll see you in 20 minutes."

"_Bye."_

From the look on her face, Bella was tired; her eyes were heavy and swollen from crying. "I'll drive him home. You can stay here and go to sleep. I'll find a way to get your car back to you before the morning." I said.

"No!" she yelled, shooting up on the couch and grabbing my shirt as if holding on to me for dear life. Her voice was just slightly over normal speaking volume and Brandon stirred. When he settled again, she whispered, "I'm not letting you leave like this. You can't leave like this." Her eyes were pleading and desperate and sparkled with the blue light from the television. I didn't want to leave like that. I wanted her with me. I wanted to kiss her goodbye at the airport. I wanted to whisper things only meant for her into her ear and make her whimper. I wanted to make love to her and memorize her body. I wanted her with me in LA. These were all things I wouldn't get, but all were things that I craved.

"Okay, that's fine, but I'm driving." She nodded accepting my condition. She turned off the DVD player and TV with the remote and we both got up carefully from the couch. I reached down and scooped his little body into my arms and we headed for the front door. Once outside, she opened the back door of her Volvo for me, and I hooked him into his booster seat. He never woke up. Our drive back to Forks was quiet except for the road and the wind whooshing around us.

There was obviously something strong between us. She had begged me to stay, and I wanted to stay. But, this silence was so confusing. Once I pulled up to Alice's, Jasper met us outside and carried Brandon inside. Alice came out to give Bella a hug, and we all bid each other good night.

Our drive back to Bella's was just as silent and just as frustrating. I couldn't tell what was going through her brain. I wanted to reassure her that I was in this, but I knew nothing would truly fix her pain at the moment. I had my work cut out for me, but she was worth it.

It seemed unbelievable that I'd become this attached this fast, but all I had to do was look at her and realize why. She shared my interests yet challenged me. She was beautiful but she didn't see just how breathtakingly beautiful she really was. She was passionate about everything: life, love, books, learning, family, friends. She was my protector, and I was hers. I loved her fervor and spirit, and I loved her. There was no doubt. I'd fallen in love with a woman in 30 hours. This was more than lust or love at first sight. This was finding your soul mate by way of fate. I couldn't let her go.

I looked over at the woman that I loved as I was driving up toward her house and our eyes met. She'd been looking at me. As if she could read my mind, she reached over and grasped my hand and squeezed before she lifted it to her lips and kissed each of my knuckles and the back of my hand. Then, she turned it over and softly kissed the bandage on my palm just as I had done to her leg earlier. Pulling up to the house, I came to a stop and turned the car off.

In a whisper that knocked the air out of me, she spoke, stopping me before I could get out.

"This is going to work. I need it to work. I'm falling in love with you, Edward."

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Do you think you know what was going through Bella's mind that whole time? Do you know what's going to happen next between these two? I bet you're wrong...  
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**So, how did you like it? What do you think so far? Leave me a review!  
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**_Check my profile for when I'll be posting my next update. Think I'm going to start slowing these down just a bit so I can get some more chapters written. I'm thinking maybe once a week...possibly twice if I'm feeling like it._**


	6. Chapter 6 Three Weeks

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**I wanted to send a shout out to all of my worldwide readers! I've got quite a few of you! I'm up to 41 countries represented, to be exact. And, thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome. Keep it up!  
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**Rated M: angst, language, drama and lemons.**

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**CHAPTER SIX**

**Three weeks**

I knew he was an actor. I knew he'd leave eventually. I just didn't realize that he was leaving _tomorrow._ I wasn't angry, and I wasn't necessarily hurt by his omission. I hurt, yes, but not because of what he did. I just wasn't ready. One full day was not enough time to be with someone that made you feel the way he made me feel.

As soon as he blurted out the words, I lost feeling throughout my body. I felt the bowl slip from my fingers, but I couldn't react. I had no superhuman speed to stop its descent. I felt the glass slice through my leg, but there was no pain. I was numb. My world had quite literally just come crashing down around me.

A cool breeze hit my face, and I realized Edward had swept down to the floor to pick up the pieces of my broken heart. I knelt down to help pick up the glass, but he stopped me before my fingers even landed on any of it.

I heard Brandon running in, and I heard Edward yelling at him to stop, but there was nothing I could do. The damage was already done. His face twisted up and he ran from the room quicker than he ran in. I was after him immediately. He needed me more than I needed to comfort myself or clean my leg. I found him face-down on the couch crying his little heart out. Sitting down on the floor next to him, I rubbed soothing circles and hummed trying to calm him. He sniffled and turned his head to me, which allowed me to see his red and swollen eyes.

"Brandon? Edward's not mad at you. He was just looking after you. If you ran into the kitchen, you'd have been hurt."

"Bu-u-u-ut...he...yelled...at me," he hiccuped.

"I know, honey. But, that wasn't an angry yell. Will you trust me? He's not mad at you," I tried to explain. "Do you want to go outside and sit in the lounger for a little while? It's twilight. We might be able to see some stars twinkling."

He nodded, and I helped him up. We walked to the back door hand-in-hand. Before I shut the door, I looked behind me and saw Edward running his hand on the floor. I hoped he'd gotten it all. I didn't want him to get cut. Brandon got on the lounger first, and I curled in next to him. Instead of looking at the stars, he turned into my chest. I didn't know what else to do beside rub his back and hum a lullaby.

"I want my mommy," he sniffled.

"She'll be home soon, okay?" I tried to calm him.

We sat there quietly listening to the breeze in the treetops and the water trickling along the rocks in the stream.

"Do you know how much I love you, little guy?" I asked. "When you were born, I was with your mommy in the delivery room. She refused to only have your daddy in there. And, when you came out, I saw what unconditional love was. They both loved you instantly. And, I loved you instantly. You should have seen us blubbering over you," I laughed while wiping the tears off my face.

I was recalling the moments of my childhood playing mommy with Alice. She was such a natural at it even when she was five. We'd made a pact that we would have our babies on the same day and at the same hospital. We would hold hands across the aisle between our hospital beds and encourage each other. Once we learned how it actually worked in middle school, we figured our pact would probably be broken, so we simplified it to being in the room to encourage the other.

I heard the door behind me open, but turning around would have been useless because I already knew who it was. I felt him walk up beside us and bend down to apologize. I was proud of how he handled Brandon. He treated him with respect even though he was so young. He knew exactly what was wrong and how to handle it.

Edward crawled onto the lounger next to me once he let Brandon back inside. His arms wrapped around my body and comforted me. I knew this wasn't his fault. It was his job. But, it still didn't stop the ache I felt in my chest. I knew I felt something deeper than an attraction for this man. The butterflies had been chased out of my stomach and were replaced with a deep longing. I needed his kiss to ground me. I needed his breathe across my face, across my neck, across the goosebumps that formed at his touch. I needed him like air. When he told me that he was leaving, that air escaped my lungs and left me...empty.

"Bella, love, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I've had the most amazing time with you, and I hated to even think about it ending. I honestly forgot all about it until this morning when my director reminded me. I was too caught up in _us_ that it had slipped my mind." I wanted to stop him immediately and crush my lips to his and taste him. He called me _love_ and said the word _us_. Was there an _us_?

In answer to my silent question, he continued. "There is an _us_, Bella. I don't care how many miles are between us, _us_ we will remain if you will still have me."

I wanted to scream "OF COURSE!" but that was irrational. "I'll never get to see you, Edward. You're leaving." I cringed at the word. He _was_ leaving. Leaving me and a future that seemed to be laying itself out in front of _us_. It was in our reach. It wanted to be embraced. But, the reasons we were brought together in the first place were also the reasons we were being pulled apart. His career. His fame.

He broke me out of my internal struggle with the facts. "I'm coming back in three weeks." My stomach did a back flip. "We're still filming here. We start in four weeks, but they need me back in three." He continued after my hopes had been raised slightly. "Yeah, I'll be here for a whole two months-" And, there it was. Two months until he was gone forever.

He looked into my eyes then, and I saw something shift in him. There was a determination in them and something I couldn't quite place.

"I want to make this work somehow, Bella. I need to try. I can't explain the draw I have to you. When we're in a room...I...I can't stay away from you. I have no control over it. My body automatically goes to yours, orienting myself around you. And...I always feel the need to kiss you. It's like oxygen. Why do I need to teach myself how to breath again when I'm around you? It's been just a little over a day since I met you, and...it feels like I've known and needed you my entire life. I _have_ needed you my entire life-"

"But what if when you go back to LA you find someone else? How far will you pull me down?" The words flew out of my mouth before I could squash them. My one fear broke out of my guarded lips and ruined the perfect words that he was speaking. I was mortified.

"I'm not planning on breaking your heart," he said. _I know you don't. _"I can't promise you that I won't Bella. I wish I could. Just know that I felt something instantly when I met you yesterday. And, when I saw you at the bar with Jake, it all came to me very clearly what I needed to do. There was no hesitation. It just felt _right. _I know you feel it, too."

Yes, I do feel it. It's crazy. It's insane. It's too soon. We barely know each other. But, it's also what I always wanted and needed.

He looked at me with the most concerned eyes I'd ever seen. "Can we try to make this work?" I looked down. I couldn't stand to see him so scared. I knew that this was what I wanted, but it was going to be hard. But, I knew that no matter how hard the days and nights got being away from him, they would still be some of the best days and nights of my life because I had him.

"Okay." Was it profound? No. Was it eloquent? Absolutely not. But, that was all I could say. When we went back inside, I put in the movie and laid down on the couch with Brandon tucked into me. He was better, but he needed me to be with him on the opposite side of the couch. Hoping that Edward would understand, I tucked the little boy into me as we laid down.

Edward had placed my feet in his lap and was rubbing them. My stress was slowly fading until he ran his hand up my shin and dug the glass I'd forgotten about deeper into my leg. I was no longer numb, and now I could feel my wounds. I would have scars forever to remind me of this night. When he came back with a wet washcloth to clean the cuts and remove the glass, I realized that even though I'd have the scars, he was doing everything he could to make them as small as possible, physically and emotionally. His soothing touch and unwavering concentration needed me to feel better and become myself again.

I watched his hands as they picked tiny pieces of glass out of my skin like a skilled doctor. He was being so careful not to hurt me any more. I felt the coolness of water on my face, so I reached my hand up to my cheek. I was crying. When he placed the last bandage over the perfectly cleaned wound, his eyes met mine. Mine were blurry from the tears, but I could see something in his eyes that I'd seen before. It was the one thing I'd been waiting four years to see since the little boy at my side was born. Something I'd never seen Jacob show me. I saw unconditional love reflected in his eyes. "Thank you." I mouthed shakily. _I love you, too._

He lifted my leg and kissed each bandage softly and the top of my foot. It was the single most caring gesture anybody had ever done for me.

I turned around then and placed my head in his lap and stayed that way until Alice called. I just wanted to hear him breathing and feel his hands in my hair. I listened to their hushed conversation and knew the evening was over. Our short time together was over. I'd take Edward back to town and drop him off at the hotel, and that was the last I'd see of him until he came back.

"I'll drive him home. You can stay here and go to sleep. I'll find a way to get your car back to you before the morning," he said. I nearly hurtled myself onto him screaming no. I fisted his shirt in my hands and hung on not ready for him to go. "I'm not letting you leave like this. You can't leave like this," I begged. I was desperate. Tears were springing up in my eyes at the realization that he was leaving me behind.

He agreed that I could go as long as he could drive. On our way to Alice's we had to keep quiet for Brandon. He was sound asleep in the back. I wanted so badly to reach over and grab his hand, but he kept them clutched to the steering wheel. I didn't know if he was nervous or if he was just being extra cautious because of the little boy in the back. When we arrived, Alice gave me a hug and thanked me while Jasper picked up the little man from the backseat.

When we got back in the car, I was going to suggest that I could drive home and just leave him at the hotel, but he headed back to my house without saying anything. He was either planning on calling his driver to come get him or he was planning on staying the night. I knew which I wanted. I took the time to memorize his features on our drive back by the dim blue light of the dashboard. His chiseled jaw with its slight scruff beckoned for me to nuzzle it. His lips formed the perfect little pout and beckoned for me to kiss them. His neck sloped beautifully to his strong shoulders, and his hair was always wild but perfect that way.

When he got to my driveway and turned, the moon shown on his face. He was troubled about something. The crease between his eyes was pronounced and deep. He released his fingers from being taught around the steering wheel and rested his hand on the center console. I took that as my chance and reached out to him and grabbed it. To memorize the way the soft skin of his fingers felt, I brushed my lips against each of his knuckles. As I held on, I felt the bandage under my fingertips and turned his hand over to kiss it just as he'd done for me.

I knew what I had to say to him as we pulled up to the house and he came to a stop. There was no doubt in my mind. I needed him to stay with me. Tonight and forever. He had spoken his true feelings to me through his eyes, and I needed to tell him the only way I knew how. I stared deeply into his eyes and spoke.

"This is going to work. I need it to work. I'm falling in love with you, Edward."

A rush of air left his lips at my declaration. Without saying a word he got out of the car and walked around to the front. I sat there stunned before I closed my eyes in dread, the tears forming behind my lids. _Was I wrong? Had I just made the biggest incorrect assumption of my life? Had I ruined everything? _I was too afraid to get out of the car and face him, so it surprised me when the door opened, and I felt a warm body reach across and undo my seat belt. His fingers wrapped gently around the tops of my arms to pull me out.

"Open your eyes, Bella," I heard him say once I was standing outside. I was scared. I didn't want to see what he thought of me. "Please open them."

"No," I squeaked. I felt one solitary tear leak out of my closed eyes and trail down my cheek until it dropped off my jaw onto my shirt. "I don't want to see something other than love for me in return, and I'm afraid I just ruined my chance." It was taking all of my might to not bolt from his hold. How far would I get before he caught up to me? Would he even follow?

"Bella," he whispered. "I'm asking you to open your eyes for me."

"Please don't make me do it," I begged. "I'm not strong enough for that kind of disappointment right now." My whole body was shaking. The legs that held me up felt like they were going to give out at any moment.

I felt his hands turn me around so that I was no longer facing him. His warm body closed in and pressed up against my back while his hands grabbed my shoulders firmly. I could feel every breath and how they were synchronized with mine. "Will you open your eyes now, you stubborn, silly girl?"

I nodded slowly and carefully lifted my eyelids. In front of me I saw myself in the window of the car door. My skin was milky in the moonlight, and my face was covered in red splotches from crying. And, over my left shoulder was the love of my life, looking me directly in the eyes in my reflection showing me how he felt. I gasped. There it was. What I was so afraid I would never see again. Unconditional love.

He leaned down to my ear closing his own eyes this time and whispered, "I _have_ fallen in love with you, Bella Swan. So quickly. So deeply. So irreversibly. I love you."

I couldn't control my tears any longer. They streamed down my face in torrents as I turned around in his arms and hugged him with all of my might. I held onto his shirt and cried into his shoulder feeling that I would be unable to let go. He tightened his arms around me with the same force and dipped his face into the crook of my neck to breathe in deeply.

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you," he repeated over and over into my hair.

I bent my head to the side and started kissing his neck. "I love you, Edward. I love you. I don't understand how this happened so fast, but I do...I love you." I found his lips and we melted together as we breathed in through our noses. It was like kissing was our oxygen. He tightened his grip around my waist even more than I thought possible. We were gasping as we broke apart resting our foreheads together.

"Bella, can I stay here tonight? I want to spend every second I can with you before I leave." He delicately brushed a strand of tear-dampened hair away from my face and tucked it behind my ear before leaning down and kissing my lips again.

"I need to spend every moment I can with you," I nodded. He leaned in to kiss me again, and then put his hand on the small of my back to lead me to the door.

Once inside, he took my hand and led me upstairs to my bedroom in the darkness, not turning on a single light. He turned around when we were through the door, walking backward to the bed, holding me in his arms while our tongues slowly stroked each other. His fingers felt like they were burning through my clothing. Movement stopped when his legs hit the bed frame and he sat down, pulling me on top of him so that I straddled his thighs. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and wound my fingers into the hair that touched his neck. Our kissing was sensual and not rushed. I needed to feel him and memorize the softness and warmth of his tongue on mine. My hands ran over his body to learn what it felt like when his muscles flexed.

His hands found the hem of my shirt and slowly started lifting, feeling each inch of my bare back as he went up. The burn he left in his wake made me breathe harder and shallower, my arms raising instinctively so that he could take it off of me. Once the garment was thrown to the floor, his fingertips lightly brushed down my neck and over my collarbone before tracing to the tops of my breasts. He leaned in again and tasted the trail of goosebumps that had risen in the wake of his touch. My head leaned back while I bathed in the sensations of his hands and tongue and breath on my skin. His hands were warm. His tongue was warm. His breath was warm. I was warm.

We didn't speak because we didn't have to. No instructions were needed. We each knew what the other desired. Edward kissed his way slowly down to the valley between my heaving breasts while he dipped me back. He was paying equal attention every part of my body, and I yearned for his touch. I arched my back so that my chest was pressed further into him and closer to his mouth while his hands traveled up my spine and unhooked my bra. As the straps fell from my shoulders, I felt all of my inhibitions fall with it like a curtain. He was worshiping me the way he said I should be.

Through our jeans I could feel him pressing against my heat. He wanted me, and I wanted him. My skin desired to feel his, so I moved my hands to the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up over his head before throwing it back on the bed behind him. Instantly he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer grinding me into his erection. I sighed at the increased friction it caused, and, at the same time, I felt his lean muscular chest lightly dusted with hair press into mine brushing along my nipples, stirring more goosebumps. I could stay like this forever.

"Oh, Edward," I moaned, grabbing his hair and attacking his mouth.

In response, he stood from the bed with me wrapped tightly around him and turned so that he could place my back onto the bed. He laid me down softly while cradling my head. We each scooted our bodies toward the middle while he stayed nestled between my legs. His lips and tongue had broken from mine and were back to my chest, this time taking my hardened nipple into his mouth, sucking and nibbling on it. I gasped at the wet and the warmth it provided. His fingers brushed up my sides and cupped my breasts, and I groaned when he ground his hips into mine again.

"Ungh," he grunted. "I need you, Bella. I need you, baby. Please. I need you." He repeated his plea over and over again against my flushed skin while he thrust his covered erection into my core making me wetter each and every time. It seemed subconscious, like he had no idea he was saying it, begging me, calling me, seeking me, craving me.

He came back to my mouth more desperate than before, and I felt his hands move to the button on my jeans and pop them open. Before pulling them down, the backs of his fingers ran against the skin below my waistband. He knew exactly where to touch me and how to touch me to make me respond. It was like we'd been doing this forever. I couldn't wait any longer.

"I need to feel you inside of me, Edward. Please make love to me." I barely recognized my own voice. It was raw and husky.

"For you, anything," he said, in the same raw and husky tone.

He sat back on his heels and curled his fingers around the tops of my jeans and started to pull them down.

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

"What the fuck!" I screamed, jumping and grabbing a pillow off the bed to cover myself. Edward flew off the bed and ran to the door looking out into the hallway.

_BANG! BANG! BANG! _The noise was coming from my front door. Someone was pounding on it.

"Bella, where the hell is that bat!" he yelled back at me.

My voice was trembling as I spoke. "It's still downstairs in the kitchen. I never brought it back up here."

"Stay here. I'm going to go see who the hell is out there and beat the shit out of them," he said menacingly.

"Edward! No!" I flew off the bed and grabbed his arm. "What if they're armed?! Let's just call the police." I was begging him. Who knew who it was down there and what they wanted.

He pulled me back into the room. "Honey, you live fifteen minutes from town. Who knows what could happen in that amount of time." His eyes were jockeying toward the door and back to me. "Stay up here. I'll try to see who it is by looking out the glass before I do anything."

"Edward-" I started to say, but he wrapped me up in a passionate kiss before I could say any more.

"I love you, too," he said after breaking from my lips. "I'll be right back, okay? Shut and lock this door from the inside. I don't want anything happening to you."

_BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!_

He stepped out and looked back at me before shutting the door. As soon as it clicked I threw my hand over my mouth to stifle a sob that was about to rip through my chest. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. This was scarier than this morning when I believed a robber was cooking in my kitchen. This was scarier because it was Edward. He was risking his life to make me safe.

My eyes frantically scanned the bedroom floor in the darkness for my shirt. Between us being outside and coming up here, clouds had set in and blocked the moonlight. The evening felt ominous all of a sudden and my stomach clenched like I was going to be sick. I found my shirt and threw it on over my head not caring if it was inside out or not and not bothering to put my bra back on.

I hadn't heard anything downstairs for a couple of minutes, causing me to start pacing the floor, biting my fingernails. All of a sudden, I thought I heard a noise, so I ran up to the door and pressed my ear against the wood. What I heard was muffled, but it sounded more like talking than fighting. _Maybe Edward was on the phone with the police? _Before I could think another thing, I heard running up the stairs. I stumbled back trying to move away from the door as quickly as possible and fell into the bedside table, knocking my head on the solid wood. I was a little dazed by it, but I was alert enough to grab the lamp and rip the cord out of the wall. If they were coming for me, I wasn't going down without a fight.

"Bella?" I heard. It was Edward, and he was calm. "Baby? Everything is fine. Let me in." I realized as he said it that I never locked the door. I'd had my minor breakdown instead.

"It's unlocked," I croaked.

The door came open, and his eyes scanned the room before they fell on my twisted body on the floor, my hand clutching my head where I'd banged it. A small bump was already forming.

"Bella!" he exclaimed before he ran over to me and knelt down. "What happened?" He was distressed, running his hands over my body looking for why I was down there. Before I could answer, I saw a dark shadow of a large man walk slowly through my doorway.

"Edward! Watch out!" I screamed, pointing behind him at the beast of a man. I pushed myself farther back into the crook of the bed and table, clenching the lamp between my fingers ready to swing at the intruder. Edward turned around swiftly and stood facing him protectively in front of me.

I realized I was having a panic attack or a heart attack or something because everything started to go fuzzy and the room started spinning around me. I could feel myself spiraling into a darkness, and I was getting frightened by the sensation. I needed him to pull me out. "Edward? Help..." And, then I felt myself slip down and fall to the floor.

The next thing I knew, there was a coolness on my forehead. "Bella? Can you hear me? Are you waking up?"

I didn't know how to respond past a "mmmhmmmm..." I heard two small chuckles at my response. _Two? _I forced my eyes to open into slits to see who was around me. The lamp was back on the bedside table and was turned on now. The brightness blinded me, causing me to scrunch my eyes shut again. "Light. Off." I demanded, finding my voice and simultaneously throwing my hands in front of my eyes. I heard the double-click of the lamp and could see the room darken through the thin layer of my eyelids.

"Bella? You passed out from a panic attack. Before you start to have another one, you should know everything is fine. Our intruder was my idiot brother."

"Hey!" I heard from the other chuckler in the room. My eyes flew open as I managed to scoot myself up into a sitting position on the bed quickly away from the voice. Too quickly. The room tilted on its axis again, and Edward grabbed me before I fell over.

"Easy, Bella," Edward said. "Slow down. You're safe." He ran the cool rag along my forehead and down over my temple again. My eyes were still adjusting to the room after the bright flash of the lamp which caused black spots everywhere that I was trying to focus. What he was telling me was all starting to form in my head and confuse me even more.

"Why is your brother here? Why is he in Forks, and why is he at my house?" I was so confused.

I saw Edward look at the man that was sitting on the end of the bed. "I'm Emmett." He reached his hand out for me to shake with a giant grin on his face. I looked at it for a second before extending mine to him timidly. He took it and my tiny hand was engulfed in his. It felt as though he could crush my bones with one tight squeeze. "I'm actually the director of his next movie. I came to the house because we have to take an earlier flight out." My breathing stopped, and I looked at Edward, whose eyes were sad. Emmett looked at his watch and said, "Yeah, we need to get going buddy. The flight leaves Port Angeles in two and a half hours. We're going to be cutting it close."

_No._

"Edward?" I didn't want this to be true. He said we'd have all night to be together. He said he'd stay here.

"I'm sorry, Bella," he hung his head. "Emmett and I flew in together, and the production company moved up their meeting with us to 9:00 in the morning instead of tomorrow morning. They've sent a private jet to get us in Port Angeles."

My eyes dropped at his words. I felt tears welling up in them, and I sniffled.

"I'll leave you alone, Eddie," Emmett said, as he slapped Edward's shoulder with his massive hand. I didn't look up until I heard the door click behind him as he left the room.

"Baby, I'm so sorry," Edward's voice cracked. I reached out and cupped my hand behind his head pulling him to my face.

"I love you, Edward," I spoke before I kissed him. He returned my kiss but it did not feel the same as before. There was a sadness in this kiss. It was a goodbye.

"I love you, too, my Bella." He sighed and stood up from the bed. "Emmett and I should get going." His head shook in disbelief as he looked up at the ceiling. I stood up next to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He enveloped me in his arms and pulled me against his chest which he'd covered with his shirt at some point. He pressed his lips to my forehead and left them there longer than a normal kiss. "I love you so damn much. I'm coming back for you," he spoke into my skin. I shook my head up and down to let him know that I believed his words. This was not our final goodbye. He was coming back. He was coming back for me.

I let go of him because I knew he had to go. He leaned in for one more kiss to my lips and then took my hand to lead us out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Once in the living room he picked my phone up off the table and dialed a number. I heard his phone ring in his pocket. "There," he said. You can save my number in your phone, and now I've got yours. I'm going to call you tonight, okay? I probably won't be free until around 8."

"Ummm...I probably won't be able to answer my phone until late." I didn't really want to tell him why because he would be concerned. He could read on my face that I was hiding something from him, though.

"Why? What's going on?" He stood closer to me.

"Well, my dad called while I was changing out of my costume at the store, and he said that Billy was having a bonfire tonight at First Beach in La Push to signify the last full week before the start of school." I took my bottom lip in my teeth waiting for him to put two and two together.

"Is this your dad's friend Billy? Jake's father?" That didn't take long. Smart boy.

"Yeah," I said quietly.

"Is Jake going to be there tonight?"

"Yeah." I couldn't look him straight in the face. I didn't want him to be mad at me.

He sighed in frustration and concern. I watched as his fingers ran through his hair and tugged at the roots. "I don't like this, Bella."

I had to cut him off before he got too upset. I placed my hands flat on his chest to get his attention. "My dad is going to be there. Nothing will happen. He knows what happened between us, and he's just as angry about it. But, he and Billy have been friends forever, and their friendship didn't die like my relationship did. Plus, if Jake was to try anything on me, dad could just whip his gun on him."

"Gun?" he asked.

"My dad's the chief of police in Forks."

"Oh," was his only response. I saw fear flash in his eyes. I'd seen that look before in all of my past boyfriends. All two of them before Jake. He was afraid of my dad, and I found it endearing.

"Ed! We gotta go! We still have to go back to the hotel to get your stuff and check out!" Emmett was back in the house. Edward huffed and looked back down at me and his hands found the side of my face.

He whispered quietly, "I love you. Don't forget about me in the next three weeks. I'll call you tonight every 10 minutes until you answer. I don't trust Jake, and I'll be worried sick about you the whole time. Promise me you'll take care of yourself and not do anything reckless."

I looked at the love in his eyes and promised. If that's what he wanted, I would be extra cautious just for him, though I knew nothing would happen. He leaned down and kissed me hard. His tongue darted out briefly and met mine before he broke away. Needing his touch for those few extra seconds, I put my hand in his, and we walked to the front door together. It was still open from Emmett, so I looked out to see the driver leaning against the sleek black vehicle seething in anger.

"I love you," he said again as he pulled my hand up to his lips and kissed my knuckles gently. "This has been the best day of my life. I'm so happy that I found you."

"I love you, too," I murmured. I could feel myself losing control; my throat was tightening into that strain before you break down. It was starting to hit me that he was leaving. It was indeed an ominous night. He kissed my forehead one last time and then turned to leave. I stayed planted where I was knowing that I could not follow. He was Edward Cullen the actor again, not Edward Cullen the man that would be there when I woke up. Though I wanted to go, to follow, our two separate and distinct worlds could not mix right now.

Our hands stayed connected as long as possible as he started walking away; our arms stretching until they were about to break, hands grazing until it was just fingers reaching for the things that they desperately wanted to hold on to. As the tips of his fingers left mine, I felt my world start to spiral back into a blackness. It wasn't the blackness of the night or the blackness of the sedan that he got into. It wasn't the blackness of the eyes of the driver as he turned to me after shutting Edward's door and glared. It was the blackness of my soul now that he was gone. _Three weeks. I could handle this. It was just three long, lonely weeks._

The car turned around and headed out toward the highway along my driveway. Following it out to the drive as it pulled away, I watched until the red tail lights disappeared around the first curve. And, like that, he was gone. It had all happened so fast. Everything. Our first meeting. Our first kiss. Our first dance. Our first morning together. Our first time trying to make love. Him leaving. I stood there for a few minutes completely numb before I felt the first drops of rain on my skin. And, then the sky opened up and wept right along with me. _Three weeks._

When a felt a shiver ripple through my body, I turned to go back into the house. I strode up to my bedroom, stripped out of my wet wardrobe and got into my cold, empty bed that should have been comforting our two warm, satisfied bodies right about now.

I reached for the remote off the bedside table and hit the button that automatically closed the blackout curtains around the entire room on a track. Just before they encircled me in darkness, a flash of light lit up the room and thunder rattled the windows sending a shock through me. It reminded me of Edward. He was my spark, my light, and my shock. He was just reminding me that he was still there. Even though there may be darkness now, he was still there, just like the lightning, the moon and the sun in the sky. And, all were shining their light on me.

* * *

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Ahhhh, love... Isn't it grand? You thought you were going to get your first lemon, didn't you? Not so fast, my eager readers.**

**Since this chapter was a little more on the serious side, I'm going to make next chapter lighter and funnier for the most part. Gun-whipping Chief Swan is ready to make his grand entrance.  
**

**I'm anxious to know what you think of the story so far now that we're six chapters in. Leave me a review, and tell me what you think!  
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_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter. Make sure you have a account because I can't reply if you don't.  
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**_Check my profile for when I'll be posting my next update.  
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	7. Chapter 7 The First Day Away

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**I wanted to send a shout out to all of my worldwide readers! I've got quite a few of you! I'm up to 44 countries represented, to be exact. And, thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.  
**

**Rated M: angst, language, drama and lemons.**

**For New Song This Chapter: http://www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

**CHAPTER 7**

**The First Day Away**

I awoke abruptly when my phone started going off downstairs. I thought for a moment that it was still night but realized it was probably morning since my curtains were pulled. "Uggghhh," I groaned groggily. "ALICE!" I rolled off the bed, pulling the covers with me. I had only stumbled my way to the door before the song ended. Once I made it downstairs, I called her back after checking the time on the digital display._ 8:30. Fuck you, Alice._

"Bellaaaaa!" she sang in her high-pitched trill. "Did Edward spend the night with you? Did you guys do the nasty? You've got to tell me details. We haven't talked much about this except for the little bit at the bookstore. Tell me, Bella. You've got to tell me everything!"

"Alice, for the love of God, shut up!" I grumbled. The other end of the line went silent. "To answer your questions like a normal person, Edward did not spend the night with me, we did not do the nasty, and there aren't many details to give."

"Well, why didn't he spend the night? What kind of idiot drives you home late at night and then goes back to his hotel? I'm going to have to have a few words with him. I gave him permission to be naughty."

I sighed into the phone. I realized the house was too silent. For the past day, I'd had a man at my house almost the entire time I was there. Whether he was banging pans around, talking or grunting in pleasure, there were other noises besides just the creek trickling outside. Now that comfort was gone

"Bells? Honey? What's wrong?"

"Ummm...Edward left."

"Yeah, so he went back to his hotel," she said, not understanding what I meant.

"No, Alice, he left left. Like, he flew back to LA this morning." There was a brief silence before all hell broke loose.

"THAT MOTHER FUCKER! I WILL RIP EACH OF HIS SEX HAIRS OUT OF HIS HEAD ONE BY ONE FOR STRINGING YOU ALONG LIKE THAT!"

"Alice-"

"OOOOHHHH, THE NERVE OF THAT LITTLE SHITHEAD ACTOR MAN. WHY I OUGHTA-"

"ALICE!" I screamed in a laugh. I could imagine her on the other end with her fists up ready to punch the imaginary Edward out. "He had to leave unexpectedly, but he's coming back next month."

"Huh?"

"He's shooting his next movie here. He had to go back to LA late last night, well I guess super early this morning to make a meeting that had been rescheduled."

"Oh," she said simply.

"No need to rip out his sex hair or call him a shithead actor man." I dipped my voice as I blushed. "He's a really good guy, Ali."

"So, you guys never had sex?" I rolled my eyes. Of course that's all she'd care about.

"Uggghhhh, no we never had sex," I dropped my head back on my shoulders and looked at the ceiling. "It wasn't without trying, though. I think the world is against us in that aspect."

"What happened?"

"Well, the first time-" I began.

"You've been cockblocked more than once?" she asked incredulously.

"You know how I hate that term, Ali. Please don't use it."

"Okay, so you've been denied the penis pleasures more than once?"

I laughed and shook my head at her new phrase that wasn't much better. "Yes, more than once. You know that you and I talked before my reading yesterday about how hot the dance and kiss was at the bar. Well, I didn't tell you about yesterday morning when I found him cooking me breakfast."

"Hold the phone. You didn't tell me everything that had happened? That's unacceptable. I'm your best friend."

"Anyways, moving on." I wasn't going to let her make me feel guilty. She didn't need to know everything as soon as it happened. "We had this really intense discussion about Jake and what it did to my self esteem, and he came over to the counter I was leaning on and trapped me in his arms."

"Oh, sexy!" she squealed.

Not deterred by her interruption, I continued. "Well, he leaned down and asked if he could kiss me again, and I told him he didn't have to ask anymore because, as you know, he asked me on the dance floor if he could kiss me." I could hear the phone rustling, so I knew she was nodding up and down. "Oh, Alice, the kiss was amazing. He lifted me off the floor again so I could wrap my legs around him, and he started walking around all crazy trying to find some place to lean against. I don't think he realized he kept walking in circles."

She was giggling now, as was I. "But, when he found the wall to prop me against, holy shit, I almost exploded right there."

"Well, what happened? Why didn't you guys have sex?"

"I was making it blatantly obvious I wanted to, and he caught on and asked me again if I was sure."

"Awwwww!" Alice cooed. "He's a gentleman!"

"I know!" I responded. "We started toward the stairs and then BAM!" I heard her jump and squeak.

"He fell down? You fell down? What's the BAM?" She asked frantically.

"Doorbell."

She groaned. "That's a _ding-dong_, not a BAM!"

"Same difference," I replied. "His driver came to pick him up to take him to his meeting. He had to leave immediately. No sex for either of us."

"That blows," she said.

"I would have if I could have!" I screamed into the phone, and we both broke into hysterics. "Geez, Alice, I was so horny. I had to take care of myself."

"Like that's any different than normal," she laughed. I laughed right along with her and shrugged.

"I guess not. Been doing that for years!"

"So, that's the first time," she said. "I'm hoping there was only a second time."

"Well, except for the two times your dear son ended up interrupting us kissing with his little throat clearing, there was only one more 'denial of the penis pleasure' for the day."

She gasped at the mention of Brandon. "He did not! I'm so sorry, Bells!"

"Oh, come on. It's not a big deal. I would have done the same thing if I was him. The other time was last night after he told me he was leaving. He told me that he had to fly out sometime today, but after dropping Brandon off with you, he asked if he could stay the night." I wasn't about to tell her about the broken bowl, the crying, the apologizing or the expressions of love. That was private between Edward and I. Eventually I would tell her that I loved him, but I wanted only Edward to know that for right now.

"So, we go up to the bedroom and are starting to undress when someone starts pounding on the front door." Alice gasped in disbelief. "Mind you, I was shirtless and bra-less already, so we were close."

She groaned on the other end of the line. "Who the hell was at your door?"

"Edward ran downstairs and left me upstairs. I'm still fuzzy on all of the details, but it was his brother Emmett. He's the director of the film. The meeting was moved up that they were obligated to attend, and their flight left early this morning out of Port. That was it. He left."

"He just left?"

"Oh, no! He...well...he kissed me and told me that he was coming back for me." I didn't want to reveal too much because our conversation consisted of lots of 'I love you's' and I didn't want to slip up.

I heard a sniffle come from Alice. "That's really sweet." She'd be sobbing if she knew everything he told me. I started tearing up just thinking about it. I heard a bell jingle on her end.

"Are you at the store already, Ali?" She didn't normally open until ten.

She groaned and whispered into the phone, "Bridezilla is back from last night. She couldn't agree on a bustle, so she was going to come in this morning with a printout from the internet of what she wants. She's not smart enough to just listen to my expert advice." I laughed. It was true. Alice was a talented designer, and anyone would look better if she dressed them. She stocked more than half of my closet.

"Well, I better go see what ugly thing she picked out that she's going to make me do. I'll come by and see you later at the bookstore, okay? Want to do lunch?"

I walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door to pull out the orange juice. "Sure, sounds good. Talk to you later, and good luck!" We hung up, and I poured myself a glass of juice. As I took a drink, my phone beeped with a missed text. Opening it, I smiled.

_**I love you, my beautiful Bella.**_

I texted back. My heart was racing at this new feeling.

**I love you, too. Don't forget about me.**

My phone beeped again almost immediately.

_**I couldn't if I tried.**_

I was about to write back when I got another text.

_**Meeting now. Call you tonight. Be safe. You promised.**_

I sighed and went upstairs to start the first day of the next three weeks.

Once I got to the store, I had no time to sulk as I had a steady flow of customers coming in and getting books for the start of school. I enjoyed helping young minds find intriguing reads. I wanted to grow their appreciation, not stifle it with mundane stories. After Alice and I had lunch at the diner, I went back to the store and decided to take a peek at my old books.

I would climb the ladder every now and then to refresh my memory of what I owned. I had an impressive collection thanks to my Grandma Marie. I heard the door open behind me and shut. I was replacing a book, so I didn't turn around.

"Welcome to Words and Paper, is there anything I can help you find?" I spoke to the books that were in front of my nose while I stretched up on my toes.

"Just the prettiest girl in the whole wide world." I knew that voice. A smile broke out across my face, and I turned my head around.

"Hi, dad."

"You be careful there, Bells. Just step up another wrung on the ladder, and you wouldn't have to stretch."

"I'm fine, Charlie." I rolled my eyes at how overly protective he was sometimes.

"You're so stubborn, just like your grandma. She would do the same thing."

"She never fell, though, did she?" I retorted with a smirk. He smiled and shook his head. I climbed back down to the floor and crossed the store to him, throwing my arms around his neck giving him a big hug.

"So, are you coming tonight?" he asked. "You said you had to ask someone something before you could say yes or no."

I hadn't told him that it was Edward that I was going to ask. He didn't know about him and me. He probably wouldn't even know he was as an actor. "Ummm...yeah, I'm coming."

"Something up, Bells?" He could always tell if I was hiding something. It was probably his almost thirty years on the police force and the fact that he was always right. Despite his sixth sense, I was still going to act like nothing was wrong, though. He didn't need to know about Edward right now.

"Sure, dad. Everything's fine. I had to ask Alice if she needed me to watch the little man tonight again. She's got a crazy bride that's sucking up her time."

"Uh huh." He didn't believe me, but the good thing about Charlie was that he knew I was an adult now. If I needed to tell him something, I'd tell him. If not, he'd stay out of it until I asked for his help. "Well, I was just stopping in to see ya for a moment. I've got to get back out on patrol. See ya at 7:00?"

"I might be a little late, but I'll be there," I smiled. With a hug and small peck on the cheek, I walked to the front door and let him out. The rest of the afternoon flew by with several customers finding their way into the store. At six, I closed up shop and headed back to my empty house. After a few minutes in the bathroom freshening up after the long day, I made my way to the closet in search of something to wear tonight.

I threw on my favorite beach-inspired Alice creation that consisted of a dark grey sheer cotton tunic with gold and light grey embroidery and my white shorts. I wasn't going to be swimming in the dark, so I just put on a tank top under the top. On went my sand-friendly flats and off I headed for the front door. I grabbed my phone and put it in my bag knowing that Edward would be calling me all night. Maybe I'd get service by some miracle.

I lived in the opposite direction of La Push away from Forks, so my drive was about 30 minutes. There was no miracle of the cell phone towers. I lost service just as I crossed onto Quileute land. "Damn," I muttered throwing the thing into the passenger seat after watching it go from three bars to zero in one second flat.

When I pulled into the parking lot of First Beach, I looked out over the guests as I stepped out of my car. I saw my dad, Billy, the Clearwaters, the Atearas and the Uleys. The whole gang minus Jake. Maybe he wouldn't show up. One could only hope. That thought was quickly erased, as I heard a car pull in next to me. The familiar wheezing sound of the engine caused me to look over and see Jake getting out of his Volkswagen Rabbit. I must have grumbled out loud because Jake looked at me and smirked. "Not happy to see me, babe?"

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. "Just looking at what I'm not missing," I sneered. It was stupid to come back at him with what he said to me Saturday night, but it was all I had.

He smiled like an ass and clutched his chest with his hand dramatically. "That...hurts." He rolled his eyes then and stalked off toward the fire and people. After waiting a few moments to get my wits about me, I headed straight for my dad but was cut off by Billy.

"Bells! It's good to see you!" He swept me up in his arms and spun me around until I giggled like a school girl.

"Hi, Billy," I laughed. I'd always loved him and thought of him as a second father to me, even after what Jake had done. Billy and his wife Kate, were in a car accident when I was in high school. Billy was paralyzed from the waist down and told he would never walk again. The doctors thought it was best that his bed was wheeled into the ICU to be next to his wife as she died, and his last promise to her was that he _would_ walk again. His recovery and subsequent physical therapy was brutal, both emotionally and physically, but last year he took his first steps. It had taken eight years, but he defied the odds. Now, he was a walking fool. Nothing could make him sit down.

He placed me back on the ground with a wink, and I adjusted my clothing. Turning around to find my dad, I met Jake's eyes across the fire. He was checking out my legs. _What a freaking pig!_ My eyes narrowed as I stared him down before I stormed off and found my dad over by the food table snacking on Sue's delicious beer dip and pretzels.

"So, how are you and Jake doing?" he asked nonchalantly, while sticking another pretzel stick in his mouth. "I saw him staring at you when Billy had you picked up. He looked a little...jealous?"

"Ewww, dad." I swatted his arm as he snorted. "That's a closed book, door, case, whatever in the hell you want to call it."

"That's my girl," he smirked, nudging me with his elbow. He always liked Jake as my boyfriend and fiance, but he wasn't going to stand there and let him walk all over me after we broke up. In the two days after the betrayal, he actually arrested him twice for going 25 in a 20 mph school zone. Behind bars was my dad's new favorite way of seeing Jake. The judge obviously had him released quickly, and Billy had a few choice words for my dad, but he was going to support me in any way he could. If that meant arrest of the unconstitutional kind, then so be it.

"Hey, Charlie! Bella! Time for the weenie roast!" Billy yelled.

"I know someone's weenie I'd like to roast," my dad muttered under his breath. I choked on the chip I'd just put in my mouth and started laughing hysterically.

"You'll have to get in line behind me," I said. Thinking about it, though, I don't think I'd really want that weenie in my mouth again, cooked through or not. I shuddered at the thought of where it had been.

Arm in arm, we walked over to the fire and grabbed pokers and hot dogs. Once mine was blackened, I used a bun to pull it off the utensil. I put it on my paper plate and loaded up on goodies from the food table. I grabbed a Mountain Dew from the cooler and sat down on the chair my dad had brought me.

Charlie plopped down next to me with his two hot dogs and fixings. I sat there and looked at all the people I hung out with every now and then at this very spot. Harry and Sue Clearwater sat to my left, talking animatedly with Billy. Jake's friends Quil Ateara and Sam Uley sat across the fire with their wives, Claire and Emily. And, Jake sat next to them, laughing at one of Quil's jokes.

How things had changed over the course of a few months. At one time, you would probably find me sitting in Jake's lap, laughing and cracking my own jokes. One of his hands would stroke up and down my spine while the other would squeeze my thigh. Everything was as it should be. We had been meant for each other. Friends in our youth, sweethearts in our adolescence and lovers in our maturity.

"So, word on the street is that you had a good time at the bar the other night," my dad said out of nowhere.

I choked on my drink and spit it across my plate. "Excuse me?" I croaked, wiping off my chin.

"Yeah, Garrett at the station was out there Saturday night when you were with your girlfriends. He said there was a guy that you seemed quite enamored with. I think he even said you left with him." He quirked his eyebrow at me.

"Dad," I whined. So much for not prodding. "Nothing happened. He was just a nice guy that helped me home because I was too drunk. I passed out apparently before he even got me to the car. He was a complete gentleman and took Alice and Rosalie home, too." It hurt me to call him "just a nice guy" because he was so much more than that, but I didn't want to have_ that_ conversation in front of everybody.

"What have I told you about drinking that much, young lady?" He looked at me sternly for admitting I was drunk enough to pass out.

"Oh, don't give me that. I'm an adult, and I chose to have fun. It had been a while, and we were completely safe. We were planning on having Jasper come get us anyways. This guy was just nice enough to give us a ride."

"How did you know you could trust him? He could have been a killer, Bella." His once playful banter was now growing slightly angry.

"A killer? In Forks, Washington? Population: Seven?" I laughed at him. "I knew he was a good guy because I'd met him earlier in the store. He saw me at the bar and came to hang out."

"After he threatened to rip Jake's heart out and drink his blood?"

I choked once again on my drink. He had a knack for picking the worst times to surprise me. "He did _what?!?_" I screeched, just a little too loud. The heads near us snapped to me, completely forgetting their own conversations to zero in on ours. Luckily Jake sat on the other side of the fire and wasn't paying attention.

"He did what?" I whispered back to my dad. The eavesdroppers turned their heads back realizing they weren't welcome to join in.

"Oh, yeah, Garrett told me all about it. Can't say I'm too happy with your little display on the dance floor, but I guess your man friend had some choice words for Jake after what he did to you. Garrett was about to jump in and restrain Jake, but your friend put an end to it. Told him he better not lay another finger on you or he'd rip his heart out and drink his blood."

My mouth was gaping open from shock. _Holy shit!_ I wish Edward was here right now. I'd jump him in front of everybody. I don't care how dark and sinister his threat was. It was damn sexy to hear about this side of Edward. My own little Protectward. Yum. I was snapped out of my reverie by Harry turning up the stereo when "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams started playing.

I laughed as my dad whooped and jumped up to start playing air drums while Harry and Billy joined in on air guitar and keyboard. All of us younger folk laughed at the hysterical display of 50-year-old men singing along to this song. It was clear to me that none of them actually knew the meaning behind the song. I sat back in my chair when Harry grabbed Sue and started dancing with her. The other couples stood and did the same. Seeing them started me thinking about how I couldn't wait for my dad to meet Edward. I couldn't wait for Edward to meet everybody here at the bonfire minus Jake. They'd already become acquainted. I sighed heavily. I missed Edward.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see if I had service, and it still showed no bars. As the song winded down, I stood and walked toward the water, away from the group and the fun to find a little peace and quiet. Since the breakup, things were never the same at these parties. You could say I was in exile. If it wasn't for Charlie, I would have stopped going. There was no real reason to be there any more.

Before I knew it, I'd walked far enough down the beach so that the only sounds I heard were the water crashing on the shore, the birds chirping above me as they glided through the evening air and the wind as it blew through the trees.

I located my piece of driftwood easily in the dark because it had been there for years. Ashen with age, it was my place to contemplate; my church pew. As I had done so many times before, I just stared at the sparkling water under the moonlight as I sat. There's my Edward. Shining his light down. A shrill ring sounded from my pocket, pulling me out of my deep thoughts and making me jump. I rushed to pull the phone out of my pocket and recognized the name that was programmed into it earlier today.

"Edward!" I yelled into the phone. "I've got service way over here, I guess!" I was so elated to hear from him.

"Hey, baby," he said. "So, you've got service after all in La Push? I've been trying for the past hour, and haven't been able to get through."

"Well, I took a walk down the beach probably about a mile. I must be closer to a tower."

There was a pause, and then, "You did what, Bella?"

"I took...a walk," I said hesitantly, realizing why he was mad. "Down...the beach." I put my head in my hands waiting for harsh words.

"Bella, would you please start walking back toward everybody?" he asked of me calmly. "Can you stay on the line with me the entire time until it cuts out? I don't like you being by yourself. Jake's there, right?"

"Yes," I gulped. I hadn't really thought about what I'd done. I knew he wouldn't do anything bad to me, but I didn't want to have to be alone with him if I didn't have to be.

"Okay, start heading back. I love you, Bella," he said. "I just want you to know that before you lose service."

"I love you, too, Edward."

"Is everything okay? You sound freaked out."

"Just starting to realize how dark it is by myself," I mumbled.

"I know the feeling," he sighed. "I know you mean in the literal sense with where you are, but I mean it in the emotional sense. I can't wait to come back to you, honey. This has been an incredibly long day."

"I feel that way, too."

"Hey, tell me what you've done so far at the bonfire. I can tell you're scared right now, but maybe that will help to distract you."

"Okay. I roasted weenies with everybody, and my dad threatened to roast Jake's weenie." Edward busted out laughing. "Speaking of threatened, I know what you said to him at the bar." Edward stopped laughing.

"Who...how...how could you know that?"

"Well, it seems that one of dad's officers saw us together the other night. I don't think he knew who you were because he didn't say anything like that, but he was sitting close to you when you were threatening him. Heard every word. So, you have to tell me, Edward, is there something you're hiding?"

He didn't respond. I heard a noise like he swallowed hard. That sparked a little interest in me, but I decided to blow it off as nothing.

"Answer me, Edward. Say it. Out loud...Are you a vampire?" He coughed and started laughing. "Drink his blood, huh? Nice touch."

"I think it got the point across," he responded, pride radiating from him all the way in LA. "At least it did for that brief moment. So, has he given you any trouble tonight?"

"Oh, just a little jab when we got there at almost the same time. He was also staring at me a little tonight, but dad's got my-" I cut off and stopped walking when I saw a figure stalking toward me in the darkness at a rapid pace. "Edward," I whispered into the phone, my voice shaking.

"Bella? What the hell is happening?! Is it Jake? Scream, Bella. Scream for help!" he instructed me. So, I did.

"Hey! Bells, it's fine! It's me, Sam! Sorry to scare you." Behind him came running Emily. She jumped on his back and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Let's hurry before they find out we're gone!" Emily laughed. "Oh, hey Bella." She stopped when she saw me standing in front of them.

My heart was still pounding in my chest, and I still held the phone to my ear. "Edward?" I heard nothing. Pulling the phone in front of me, I checked the bars and they were at zero again. The call had disconnected. I ran back about 100 feet the direction I just came from and briskly dialed his number again, but it wouldn't connect. "Shit!" I yelled. He didn't know I was okay. He probably thought I'd been hurt. I took off running past a stunned Sam and Emily and headed for the bonfire. Dashing up to my dad, I kissed him on the cheek right before grabbing my bag and shoes.

"Where are you off to so fast, Bells?" he yelled at my retreating back.

"I just have to go! Sorry! Love you, dad!" I jumped in the car and headed back toward the line where I always lost service. I held the phone in my hands while I kept hitting the side button so I could see the screen and the service bars. Just where I predicted, three beautiful, perfect, ascending lines popped up on my screen, and I hit send for Edward's number.

"Bella! Are you okay? Baby? Did he hurt you?"

"Edward, I'm fine." I was breathless from the adrenaline. "It wasn't Jake. It was Sam and Emily. My phone freaking lost service right there. I ran back to the car as fast as I could and took off to try to call you back. I'm okay."

"Oh, thank God," I heard him say in a rush of breath. "I was on my way to the airport to come to you."

It took me a second to comprehend. "_You what?_ You could come here of you wanted?"

"Actually, my manager would have killed me, but I would have done it if I thought something happened to you. I _did_ think something happened to you. Hence why I've had to turn my car around and head back home." I sat there in my seat dumbfounded.

"You'd do that for me?"

"I'd do anything for you, Bella. I'd give up everything if you wanted me to."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Don't say that. Acting is your career, and you're excellent at it. I would never ask you to give that up."

"I'm in love with you, and if I had to make the sacrifice, I would," he said defiantly.

"That's...just stupid, Edward. Let's stop this conversation right now because it's never going to come to that." I was getting upset over this, and I didn't want to argue on the phone over something that would never happen anyways. I took a deep breath to calm myself down.

"Okay, we'll stop. I'm sorry I upset you. Let's just talk about something else. Where are you at now?"

I was coming up on the fork in the road to turn right and head into town. "I'm about three minutes outside of Forks, so about twenty minutes from home."

"Did you have a good time except for the beach incident that I'm taking full credit for?"

I laughed because it was true. "You did make it infinitely worse than it actually was. Thanks for freaking me out, by the way." He apologized. "Yeah, I had a good time. After dad and I had our little conversation about what his officer heard you saying, him and Harry and Billy got up and played air band to 'Summer of '69.' It was pretty hilarious. After the couples started dancing, I started to think about you and how much I want you to come to one of the bonfires."

"I'd love to go, but I've got to say I'm a little scared of your dad."

"You've never met him! He's not scary even though he's a cop."

"He said he wanted to roast Jake's weenie!" he laughed. "That makes me even more scared. He's willing to inflict bodily harm."

"Well, he knows everything that went down between Jake and I. He's always been protective of me, and he supports me. I couldn't have asked for a better dad."

"Do you tell him that?"

I thought about it for a second. _Did I?_ "Of course I do, but I could probably tell him more I guess." I shrugged into the phone. "He's never been an emotional person...well, except for..." I trailed off.

"Except for what?" He was concerned. "What happened?"

"I'd rather not talk about it right now. It's just too hard."

"It's about your mother," he stated. It wasn't a question. He wasn't pressing me for more information. Just coming to a conclusion. "You never speak of her."

"Yeah," I whispered. I could feel the aching strain in my throat. I didn't like to think about it much. "She died in a car accident when I was in high school."

He didn't speak for a moment. "I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a parent at a young age. If she was anything like you, she must have been amazing."

Mom and I had our similarities, but I always thought I was more like my dad. She was quirky and eccentric and up for anything where my dad was mellow and liked to spend his off-time fishing or watching sports on television. Though they seemed complete opposites, they were the same where it mattered most. They loved each other for who the other was despite their differences. He could make her laugh like no other, and though my mom and I had very different personalities, I did have her smile and her laugh. I would catch my dad just looking at me every now and then when I was happy and know that he was seeing her in me.

"She was definitely amazing," I muttered quickly, trying to stop the tears from falling. I needed to move past this, so I changed the subject with a small cough. "What did you do today?"

He was respectful enough of my needs, that he complied. "Well, after we landed at LAX, we had to go straight to the meeting. I haven't had a shower all day. I feel disgusting."

"What was your meeting about?"

"Oh, just movie stuff. Contracts to sign, schedules to coordinate. Just a gathering of everybody that's crucial to the production."

"I see." I nodded my head. "So, what were you doing all day that you weren't free until tonight?"

He paused before answering. "I had a photo shoot all afternoon with a costar for my movie that comes out in a few months and then I went to dinner."

"Who?" I questioned. I knew that he had a movie coming out in a couple weeks with Maggie Carmen by the trailers on television, but I didn't know what was next.

"Ummm...Tanya Paul."

"Oh, yeah?" is all I said. I tried to sound indifferent, but I felt a twinge of jealously shoot through me. "She's very pretty." She was actually gorgeous. Tall, strawberry blonde, the object of every man's wet dream, and the most famous actress in the world right now.

"Uhhh...yeah...she's pretty," he muttered into the phone. I could sense a change in his tone. I didn't know what it was, but I didn't think I'd like what he wasn't telling me, and he was definitely keeping something from me. Besides my hair color, skin tone, eyes and personality, my father had also given me his sense of awareness and perception.

My car drove by the old red truck, and knew I was close to home. He didn't press me on my mom, so I'd extend him the same courtesy. I trusted him. Whatever it was that he wasn't tell me was before I came around, and I couldn't fault him for that. "Hey, I'm in my driveway. Thanks for talking to me."

"It's what I'm here for, Bella. How about you go inside, take a nice bath and get some sleep. It's been a long day."

"It really has if you consider early this morning," I agreed. A lot had happened in the last 24 hours. I pulled up to the house and got out of the car. "I'm here. Will I get to talk to you tomorrow?" I asked hopefully.

"I should have loads more time. I'm going to the studio with Emmett to check out the sets that are being built in the morning. I also think we're going to lunch, but I don't have anything scheduled for the afternoon."

"Great, so can I call you?" I asked.

"Of course. Call me whenever you want. If I don't answer, just leave a message."

I unlocked the door and made my way into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water after throwing my purse and keys on the sofa. "Okay, well, I'll give you a call tomorrow afternoon so that I won't interrupt you guys." I paused a second before I continued. I felt I needed to remind him of something. Even though I trusted him, insecurity was washing over me. "You know I love you, right?"

"Yes, I do. And, you know I love you, right?"

I breathed a sigh of relief for some reason. "Yes, I do," I echoed his words.

"Well, good. That's settled." I could hear a smile in his voice. I smiled in return because that's all I needed to hear. "Dream of me, Bella."

"I'm sure I will," I replied. "I love you. Good night."

"I love you, too, my Bella. Good night."

I walked up the stairs and stripped down in my bathroom. I wouldn't have considered a bath if he hadn't mentioned it, but it was just what I needed to take the stress of the day away. I slunk down into the hot bubbly water and felt my tension slip away as if it was his hands that caressed my body. And, with that thought, my hands traveled over my skin, imagining he was here in the tub with me.

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Isn't Charlie awesome? He's such a good dad.**** Too see Bella's outfit for the bonfire, check out my profile!  
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	8. Chapter 8 Secrets

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**I wanted to send a shout out to all of my worldwide readers! I've got quite a few of you! I'm up to 48 countries represented, to be exact. And, thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.  
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**Rated M: angst, language, drama and lemons.**

**There's a new song in this chapter: http://www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

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**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**Secrets  
**

When I hung up the phone with Bella, I rubbed my hands over my eyes to relieve my tension. The night had been riddled with it. I had been worried about her going to the bonfire that Jake was attending. I had been worried when she said she had walked down the beach alone. I had been downright scared to death when her voice whispered my name in the phone. It was a cry for help. I'd never felt so powerless in my life. I couldn't do anything for her besides tell her to start screaming for help that I hoped her dad would provide.

When the phone cut out, I about lost my mind. I started yelling into the receiver and frantically dialing her number again and again. After getting her voicemail six times, I jumped up and left everything as it was to head for the airport. Only Bella mattered at that moment. I had been driving for about ten minutes when my phone rang, jarring me out of my fear and rage-induced haze. Bella's name flashed on the screen, a beacon of hope.

I'd found out that she was fine, and it wasn't Jake after all. Relief washed over me like a wave. I was able to turn around and head back for the house. We'd talked some while she was on her way home, and I found out that her mother had died when she was in high school. Triggering a memory of her wasn't something I'd wanted to do, and I could hear the pain in her voice. And, I didn't want to make her cry over it, especially since she was driving at night.

When we started talking about my day, an obvious change of topic, I tensed up. I hadn't told Bella about the photo shoot with my costar Tanya Paul because, well, I didn't want to have to answer questions about her yet. It was a shit move on my part. I knew that. But, I was ashamed of what I'd done with that woman. There was a time to tell Bella what I was hiding from her because she deserved to know...she needed to know _everything_...but this was not that time.

I laid down in bed early tonight because I hadn't had much sleep over the past few days. And, it was comforting knowing that Bella was thinking about me at the same time. As I drifted, I hoped I wouldn't have the same nightmare I'd been having each night since I'd met her. Each time I slept, I was assaulted with horrifying images of her crumpled body on the ground. The gun was always there, my fear exponentially growing with each new second that flashed through my mind. This night, though, I was reprieved. Was it because I'd been scared enough tonight as it was?

I was awoken to the sound of my default ring tone blaring in my bedroom. Reaching over to the side table, untangling my arm from the sheet, I grabbed my cell phone to check the number. Jane. She'd had her own special song at one time, but she got pretty pissed when she called me just as I was walking into the door of her office and was serenaded to the chorus of "Evil Woman" by Electric Light Orchestra.

I hit answer and was barraged with information before I even could say "hello."

"Okay, Edward. I've adjusted your schedule to where you will be with Emmett all morning and you've got two hours scheduled for lunch. That leaves us with you being free after two o'clock. I need you to meet me in my office at three for a suit fitting with Armani. They need to get it tailored for the premiere Friday night."

I grumbled into the phone. If I hung up on her, she'd call back. If I chose to not answer, she'd come out to the house. "Fine, Jane. I'll be there." So much for my _free_ afternoon.

"How was Washington? I'm sure it was dreadful being in that small little town."

It was easy to admit that when I left for Washington, I was absolutely fearing it. Forks was a small town with nothing to do. Emmett was going to be there, but he would be busy with Aro a lot of the time scouting out their final shooting locations, and I was just along for the ride because I had an open schedule. Emmett was wanting to show me the town that would be my home for two months. What I hadn't expected to find on my second day was Bella.

"Nah, it wasn't that bad, Jane. I think it will be fun to shoot there. Small towns are good because the fans aren't as crazy as big cities." I laughed inwardly thinking about the hoard of girls that had attacked me on the street. "They're crazy, but not as crazy," I clarified.

"Well, I sure as hell am not looking forward to making my visit there with you. I hate small towns."

"Give it a chance," I said. "It very quaint. I imagine it will be really beautiful in the snow, too." My mind drifted to what it would be like. I dreamed of standing at any of Bella's windows looking out over her backyard while it snowed. The ground would be blanketed, the tree branches would be weighted down in white powder and the stream would be frozen over. She was tucked into my arms with her back to my chest, and I'd have a blanket wrapped around both of our shoulders to keep us warm.

"Gag...snooooow," Jane whined dramatically. What a pessimist.

"Are you done?" I snapped. She was talking about the town that my love was from. I'd become quite attached to it over those few days, and it had everything to do with Bella.

"Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?" she prodded.

I buried my face in the pillow and grumbled. "I haven't been up yet to eat Cheerios. Is this phone conversation over? Is there anything else I should know right now?" She was aggravating.

"I think you're set. I'll call you if there are any changes."

"Fine. Bye." The phone was thrown across my bed before she could even say goodbye herself. Looking at my alarm clock, I only had an hour before I was supposed to meet Emmett. I took a quick shower and then went into the kitchen for a delicious well-rounded breakfast of apple Toaster Strudels. After I licked the remaining frosting out of the little plastic packet, I grabbed my keys and headed for the garage.

I'd given Marcus a few days off to regroup from our trip to Washington. He'd been edgy and angry for a good chunk of our time there. Figuring that it was something personal bothering him, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Sliding into my new shiny silver 2010 Aston Martin Rapide, I took a deep breath through my nose to smell the fine leather. I loved this car but barely got to drive it. Throwing it in reverse, I sped out of my driveway and took to the highway. It took me about twenty minutes to reach the gate, and I was allowed right in by the security guard.

"Edward, my brother!" I heard echo through the room, when I walked in to the studio. Emmett wrapped me up in a big bear hug, lifting me in the air. His personal assistant walked up and asked if I needed anything to drink. I hated when he did that in front of other people. No, scratch that. I hated when he did it period.

"I'm fine, Karen. Thank you," I croaked. She nodded with a small smile at the corner of her mouth and headed off somewhere to leave us be.

Emmett wound his strong arm around my neck after he put me down and attempted to give me a noogie as soon as she was out of sight. "God, you big oaf, get the hell off of me!" I yelled, attempting to shove his body away at the waist but not budging him an inch. He was laughing like a mad man above me. There was only one thing to do. Lifting my right foot off the ground, I slammed it down to the ground, digging my heel into his toes with all my strength. He yelped and stumbled off. Would it have been more entertaining to punch him in the nuts? Sure. But, I didn't want to be on the receiving end of his retaliation with that one.

When I realized the torture was over, I stood up straight and ran my fingers through my hair to straighten the locks back into their effortless disarray. "Oh, you and your fucking hair," he griped. "It's always about the hair."

"It's not about the hair," I scoffed. "I just don't want to have knots where you ran your damn knuckles through it." I touched the crown of my head and grimaced. "That fucking hurt, dumbass!"

He just laughed at me and blew it off. "Come on, I want to show you the room where you're going to be getting it on with Victoria." I rolled my eyes but followed.

Emmett's movie _I'm Thinking of You Tonight_ was about a man that meets the love of his life and then is drafted for the Vietnam War. When I read the script, I was surprised that my character did not die. I was tired of dying in the movies I starred in, and it was also too cliché for the man to go to war and not come home. What really hooked me on the project, though, was the connection the two characters had while they were apart. Each wrote in a journal, and when he came home, they shared them with each other and realized that on many nights, they had been thinking about the same things.

It was a standard romantic drama with love and tears, nothing Oscar-worthy, but I'd always wanted to work with my brother since he'd become a director.

Victoria Embry was my love interest in the movie, and I was grateful to finally be working with someone that was happily married. Maybe the magazines would back off this time and not claim I was screwing my costar. If they did, at least they wouldn't be right this time.

"This is it, my man." He put out his hands and presented it to me like a prize on the Price is Right. "It's nothing like that bedroom of that chick's house in Forks, though. Damn, that was a sweet house!"

Shaking my head, I agreed. "You aren't kidding about that, Emmett. I was pretty surprised when I saw it myself."

"Who the hell is she?" he asked. "Was she the chick you fucked that one night I couldn't find you?"

"Jesus, Emmett!" I punched his arm hard enough to make him rub the spot that stung. "We didn't have sex. And, stop calling her a 'chick.' Her name is Bella."

"Testy! Well, Bella was pretty fucking hot if I do say so, passed out or not."

"Yes, I agree. She's gorgeous." I looked down at the ground and was attempting to dig the toe of my shoe into the concrete. Her beauty was something I couldn't deny or slug him for. It was obvious to every man.

Emmett started laughing. "Let me get this straight." He pulled out his hand and started ticking things off on his fingers. "You didn't fuck her. I can't call her chick. You insist I call her by her name. And, you refuse to say she's fucking hot, opting to call her _gorgeous_ instead. What the hell has gotten into you, man?"

I couldn't tell him the truth. I only wanted Bella to know I loved her for right now. "First, we didn't _fuck_," I grumbled at the word, "because you stopped us by banging on her door like a crazed murderer, idiot!" He blushed all of a sudden and mumbled an apology. "Second, she deserves a little more respect than being called a chick. She has a name. It's Bella, and it suits her perfectly. And, third, _gorgeous_ is a much more appropriate term for someone with her amount of beauty. _Fucking hot_ is a term that demeans a woman more than compliments her."

Emmett's face was one of shock before it spread into a huge grin. He shoved my chest, and started laughing again. "You're in love!" he exclaimed, starting to jump up and down and pump his fists in the air. "You're in love! You're in love! My brother is in love!"

My eyes darted frantically around the room looking at the crew members that had their attention directed at the both of us now in question. I ran up to Emmett as fast I could trying to shush him, but he wouldn't respond to my pleas. So, I pulled my fist back and punched him in the eye to get him to shut up. "Ouch!" we both yelled in unison. My damn hand was on fire from the impact, and Emmett was grabbing his eye still laughing while he rolled around on the floor. At least I knocked him down this time. That was no small feat.

"Holy shit, brother! I didn't actually believe it until you just fucking punched me! Holy shit! I've got to call mom!" As the words "call mom" left his mouth, I crouched down like a mountain lion about to pounce on its prey. In one swift motion, I jumped on top of him on the floor and wrestled the phone out of his pocket before he could get to it. After firmly grasping it in my hand, I pushed myself away as quickly as I could by scooting on the floor.

"I think I just touched your junk," I admitted, with disgust written _all over_ my face. "Ugh," I groaned. "I just touched my brother's junk. _My brother's junk!_" My voice raised into an unnaturally high pitch as I shuddered at the words.

He sat up, still rubbing his eye and smiled at me before extending his hand out. Taking this as a peace offering, I reached out and shook it as he pulled me into a hug on the floor. This was so weird. People had to be staring at us. If we weren't blood relatives, we'd be all over the magazine covers tomorrow coming out of the closet. My second time, his first.

"I'm happy for ya," he said, pounding my back with his flattened hand. "That's awesome."

"I'm happy for me, too," I spoke into his shirt. My face was plastered up against his chest, and my neck was an an odd angle. "Can you please let me go now?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry." He released his grip around my upper body, and we both got up dusting off our clothes.

The rest of the morning we walked around and he showed me the sets and the funny little things he'd hidden on them like a cell phone and a VHS of Forrest Gump. Some of the sets would be portable so they could come with us to Forks. If the weather wasn't ideal one of the days were to shoot outdoors, we'd have a set erected in a warehouse nearby to film there instead. Once noon rolled around, we headed to lunch at one of our favorite diners nearby. The sandwiches were outstanding, and beer tasted excellent with them.

"So," Emmett began as we were finishing up our meals and wiping our faces with our napkins, "I wanted to apologize for barging in and ruining your moment with Bella the other night. Wish I didn't have to do that." He took a swig from his bottle of beer.

"Nah, don't worry about it," I said. "You and I had an obligation. I won't say it didn't suck that Bella and I couldn't continue where we were going, and I really hated leaving her so quickly, but it had to be done." He nodded. "I do wish that you hadn't acted like a maniac, though."

"Yeah, I probably could have called or rang the doorbell at the very least," he said.

"No shit," I laughed. "God, I was so fucking scared. I was putting on this huge front about beating the shit out of whoever was downstairs, but all I wanted to do was hide!"

Emmett was laughing now. "You should have seen your face when you flung that door open and had that bat in your hands. The tip was wobbling so much from how hard you were shaking!" We laughed a little more about how Marcus had given him such a hard time about finding me but eventually broke down and drove him to the place that he figured I was. After we paid for our meals, we said our goodbyes, and I headed for Jane's office.

Walking in, I sat down in the chair across from her. "Where's the suits?" I asked, sighing. I liked nice clothes, but I hated getting dressed up.

"They are running late. Should be here in 30 minutes or so," she said while she still was typing on her computer. Three more clicks of the mouse later, she pushed back and looked at me across her desk.

"Now that I've got you in private, tell me what you've been hiding." She tapped her fingernails together in front of her. _Click click click click click. Click click click click click. _I sat there stunned. _Did she know about Bella? How could she?_

"I don't know what you're talking about, Jane," I said emotionless, trying to make sure that I was giving away nothing.

"Edward, I've been with you since you began. I like to think I know everything about you, and I like to think I know all of your tells. Spill it." _My tells? Didn't know I had any._

"You've got to give me more than that, Jane," I said. "There's lot of things you don't know about. At least I don't think you know about them. I'm not about to go spouting off my secrets." I flashed my crooked grin knowing it worked on her every time. She opened her drawer and pulled out a magazine flinging on her desk in front of me. Flipping to a dogeared page, she pointed to a paragraph in a column of random sightings on the right side.

_Edward Cullen was spotted getting steamy with a random brunette in a Houston, Tex., club this weekend. Inside sources say the two were making out on the dance floor and left together late into the night, kissing and holding hands. Is the Most Eligible Bachelor off the market? And, who's this girl that seems to be winning his affections? Sharpen your claws, ladies. You may have to fight this little minx off._

My stomach clinched at how much information they actually had right this time. Somebody recognized me, but the location was obviously wrong, and so was our alcoholic state when we left. I had made sure that my face stayed blank while I read so that I wouldn't give away my secret. There would be no tells if my face was blank.

"There it is!" she exclaimed, pointing her finger at me. "Tell number one!"

"Excuse me?" I was so confused. What had I done?

"Your face! If you read something that's not true, you show emotion. You laugh, you throw it back to me, you smile at the stupidity. If it's true, you work your hardest to make it seem like it's not true."

Hmmm...makes sense. Well, at least now I know.

"Who is she, Edward? Give me her information." She was motioning her fingers while she pulled out her pad of paper and pen.

The nerve of this woman...

"I'm not giving you any information on her, Jane," I said, crossing my arms over my chest and resting back in my chair.

"Well, either give it to me now or wait for the press to find out and spread it all over the tabloids. Which is it going to be, hmmmm?" She could be so annoying sometimes.

I thought about what she said, though. She was right. If Bella and I planned to stay together, she'd be a member of the spotlight eventually, as much as I didn't want it to be that way. "I'll give you the information that I know as long as we have an understanding that we will not be making a statement on her. It's 'no comment' from everybody in this office and from my family."

"Fine," she complied. "What's her name, age, hometown, occupation, family names and secrets that could come back against you?"

I huffed in annoyance. This was so stupid. Just as I was about to start telling her the information, my phone rang. I pulled it out and saw it was Bella. "Hold on," I motioned to Jane, with a raised finger.

"Bella!" I exclaimed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jane write down her name at the top of the paper before I got up and strode to the corner of her office to sit in another chair. "How's your day been, sweetheart?" Jane's right eyebrow inched up her forehead in surprise at my term of endearment.

"It's been great! I've been really busy today! It makes me giddy. You'll be happy to know that I convinced another person to read _The Jungle_ today. By the way, have you started your copy, yet?"

"I am happy to hear that, and yes, I have started it. I didn't get much reading done on the plane since we left so early in the morning, but I've been taking it with me places when I can. You're right. It is a good book ."

"Good," she said. There was a short pause before she spoke again. "I really miss you."

I sighed because I felt the same way. "I really miss you, too."

"So what are you doing right now? Relaxing by the pool? Getting a massage? Buying your tenth car?"

I laughed at her idea of what Hollywood was like. "No, quite the opposite exactly. I'm sitting in my manager's office getting grilled on who the mystery brunette was that I was making out with in Houston, Texas."

Her end of the line was silent.

"Bella? Honey? You there?"

"Yeah, I'm here." I heard her say quietly.

"Bella!" I laughed. "It's you, you silly girl! Some tabloid printed a paragraph saying that I was spotted making out with a brunette on a dance floor in a Houston, Texas, club and that we were seen leaving together. It's you!" I couldn't control the laughter that was coming out of me.

I heard her release a huge breath into the phone.

"You wouldn't seriously think I'd do something like that would you? Plus, you know where I've been for the past several days."

"Yeah, I guess so," she said. "It's just weird that it showed up in a magazine and that the location was wrong."

"That happens more than you think."

"Wait, so you're in a meeting with your manager right now? Why did you answer your phone? I'll let you go. I'm sorry I called you at a bad time."

"Hey, it's fine," I said stopping her before she hung up. I made sure to look at Jane before I continued. "You're more important to me than my manager anyways." Her mouth popped open and then she flipped me off. I covered the mouth part of the phone and whispered, _"You're an evil woman!" _to Jane across the room. She flipped me off with both fingers this time.

"Well, I should probably get going anyways. Old Man Caius just walked in. He probably needs my help. Can't see, walk or hear too well."

"Okay, that's probably for the best," I laughed. "I think Jane's about to kill me anyways. Once you have some free time later tonight, give me a call, okay?"

"Alright, I will." I could tell she was smiling again. "Have a good rest of the day, and please be nicer to Jane."

I smiled. "I will. Love you, Bella. Bye."

"Love you, too."

I stood up and walked back over to Jane's desk and sat down across from her. Her eyes were about to bug out of her head. "What?" I asked.

"Ummm...you..." she sputtered. "You...just said you loved her on the phone before you hung up." My hand dropped. I didn't even notice I'd done that. I hadn't exactly planned on telling Jane that bit of information because that was private, but once again, I'd let it slip. There was no point in hiding it now, though.

I sat up a little straighter in my seat and nodded my head. "Yes, I do love her."

"Well," she said surprised. "Give me her last name. Looks like we've got some bases to cover. Edward Cullen's never been in love before."

I answered most of her questions to the best of my knowledge, but did not reveal any of her secrets. Jane had a problem with this because it would be more damage control if there actually was anything that came out, but I wouldn't put up with it. Her past was hers to tell. Jane didn't need to know about Jake and her mother at this point.

After she was satisfied with what I was willing to tell, she pulled up a document on her computer and started typing some things.

"You're not sending out an email to every publisher in North America, telling them I've found my true love, are you?" I whispered while leaning forward to look at her screen.

She rolled her eyes. "No, Edward. I'm prepping a disclosure document for Bella. I'll fax it to her sometime this afternoon and have her sign it. We've got to dot all of our i's and cross all of our t's now."

I didn't like this. She shouldn't be treated like someone I couldn't trust. I threw my hands down on the desk. "Absolutely not, Jane. I will not send her a contract saying what she can and cannot say about me. That's crossing a line. This is the woman that I love and trust, not an employee hired through an agency I've never heard of before."

"That's not the way this business works, Edward." She didn't stop typing or look away from the screen. Glancing down toward the floor, I noticed something sticking out from under the panel on my side of the desk. I leaned under the desk and pulled the power cord to the computer, turning it off and making her lose the document.

"Hey, you little shit!" she screamed. Before she could continue, there was a knock on the door. "Come in!" I yelled, smiling hugely at her while waving the cord in the air.

"You get this back if you promise to not send her a disclosure document -- ever."

"Fine," she huffed.

"We've got a rack of suits here for Mr. Cullen," an older woman said behind me. I stood up and walked over to inspect them. Shaking her hand I asked for her name.

"Renata, sir," she told me.

Pointing at the suits, I asked, "All Armani?"

"Yes, sir," she confirmed, clasping her hands in front of her.

"My favorite. Thank you." I scanned the ten suits and pulled a charcoal gray one-button off the rack to inspect it. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. 100% Wool. Renata handed me a classic white button down and a black tie and pointed me to Jane's office restroom.

"Okay, Mr. Cullen, if you'd go and try it on, I can tailor it."

I put on the suit but opted to leave the top few buttons of the shirt undone without the tie. When I walked out, Jane whistled in approval. "Sexy Edward is showing up to the premiere Friday night!" I rolled my eyes at her. She had become sort of the older sister I'd never had over the years. Our relationship was playful and easy because neither of us saw the other as an object of affection. We'd always been strictly professional.

Renata came over and took my measurements and made marks on the fabric. When she was done, I went back into the bathroom and carefully took it off so that I wouldn't mess up her work. After handing the suit back to her, she left and Jane and I sat back down for more business.

"Well now that we've taken care of those two things, I'll give you the rundown of Friday night. The showing starts at 8:00. I'll have a car pick you up at 6:30 to make it's way to the theater. I suspect, with traffic, you'll arrive no later than 7:15." I shook my head in understanding. She'd email me with the final schedule the day before, so I was just going to take mental notes.

"Now, am I to reserve a premiere ticket for Bella?" she asked. My head snapped up. I hadn't thought about asking her to the premiere. Would she want to go? Would she be willing to close the shop for a few days to join me in LA?

"I hadn't thought about it to be honest," I replied. "Let me talk to her tonight. I'll call you as soon as I know." She made a note in her calendar and went on. The rest of what she said seemed to be muffled. I was lost in thought about what Bella would say. It would be a chance to see her before I went back to Forks. We could spend almost every hour together because I didn't have much going on those few days. I'd scheduled it this way so I could relax.

I wanted to run out of the room considering I wasn't paying any attention anyways and give her a call, but I figured she might still be busy with her customer. I was for sure calling her right at six o'clock, though, when she closed.

"So, does that all sound okay?" Jane asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, sounds perfect," I mumbled, not really knowing what I was agreeing to.

"Well, I've got a meeting in ten minutes, so you can get going. Make sure to call me as soon as you hear from her about the premiere. I can't wait much longer."

"No problem." I stood up from the chair and walked out of her office without saying another word. As I made it out to my car, I looked at my phone for the time. It was only 3:30. I took a chance and hit her speed dial number.

"Edward?" she asked. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's great," I stated. "More than great. I've got a question for you." I paused while I took a breath. I hoped she'd be able to answer me right away, and I hoped it would be a resounding yes. "What are you doing Friday night?"

She laughed. "I don't figure I'll be doing a whole lot considering my boyfriend is out of town, but I'm sure I could find something to do if I tried."

"You up for a little vacation?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Do you want to come to LA and go to the premiere of my new movie?" She didn't say anything again. "Bella, you've got to stop doing that to me."

"Doing what?"

"Those big dramatic pauses! I'm the actor here. That's my job!" I was laughing into the phone.

"Oops, sorry," she giggled. "But, really. You want me to come to LA for your premiere? Are you sure you're ready for that?"

"Ready for what?" I asked. I was ready for her to come see where I lived and hang out for a few days to take the edge off of our three weeks apart.

"Well, ready to take me to something that's important to you. What if I end up in a magazine?"

"Technically you've already ended up in a magazine," I corrected, reminding her of our bar tryst. "But, if you're not ready for that, I won't force you to come." I was a little sullen at this offer.

"No, that's not it. I...just didn't know if you would want me to be in magazines with you. I'm not some gorgeous actress that you deserve to have draped on your arm. I'm...average."

Now it was my turn for the dramatic pause.

"Edward? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here, Bella. But I just want to get something straight with you, though. You are my favorite person in the whole wide world. I am so proud to call you mine. I've never seen such natural beauty in my life. I'm so lucky that you're the person that I've fallen in love with, and I'm so lucky that you chose me as your person to fall in love with. Never in our time together have I thought of you as average. You are extraordinary in every aspect. And, I never want to grace the cover of another magazine without _you_ draped on my arm."

I heard a sniffle come from the other end.

"I love _you_, my beautiful Bella. You and only you."

"Thank you," she whispered. "I love you, too."

With that out of the way, I was now getting antsy. She hadn't answered me. "So will you come?"

Without any more hesitation, she replied. "Yes, I'll come."

I threw out an old school fist-pump while I was sitting in my car in the parking lot.

"Wow, there's a lot to plan in a short amount of time," she continued. "I've got to buy a plane ticket. I need to find a dress. I need to pack. I need to book a hotel room."

I sputtered. "Excuse me? Hotel room? No, absolutely not. You're staying with me."

"Just checking," she said, sounding coy. "Didn't want to overstep my boundaries."

"Please, overstep all you want. And, don't worry about a plane ticket, either. I invited you. Just tell me when you'd like to leave, and I'll book it under your name."

"I'll have none of that," she said. "I have my own money, and I was the one who agreed to come to LA. I'll take care of it. You just be there to pick me up, and we'll call it even."

I couldn't help but smile. She was just as excited as I was about seeing each other.

"Well, what about a dress? Do you want to get one here at a boutique or do you have something?"

"How dressy is it? Oscar-type gowns or a little edgier like the Grammys?"

"Hmmm...not as dressy as the Oscars and a little more material than the Grammys."

She thought for a moment. "I don't have anything that I feel is appropriate, but I do have a best friend that could whip me up something in a few days."

"That sounds perfect," I said, remembering that Alice was a clothing designer.

"Crap," she grumbled. "Someone else just came in. I've got to go."

"Hey, Bella," I said, stopping her before she hung up. "I'll love you forever."

"Me, as well. You make me so happy, Edward. Thank you for inviting me to your premiere."

"I just wish I'd have thought of it sooner. I'm really so happy to see you in a few days. So incredibly happy to be with you again."

"I feel the same way," she murmured.

"Get to your customer, baby," I pushed. "We'll talk soon. Love you."

"Love you, too."

Bella was coming to LA. She was going to my premiere. I was the happiest freaking guy on the face of the Earth.

* * *

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Emmett and Jane both found out Edward loves her. I wonder what Edward's other secret is that he's keeping from Bella? Think she'll find out soon? My guess is soon. Maybe not next chapter soon but soon enough.  
**

**If you loved Emmett in this chapter, expect to see a lot more of him in the future. He's fun to write.**

**I've uploaded a ****link to Edward's Aston Martin in my profile. Go check it out. I'll upload the picture of his suit when they attend the premiere.**

**I got some awesome reviews last chapter. Keep those coming in! I love reading and responding to them.  
**

_**FOR TEASERS: Follow me on Twitter: parismylove6207**_

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter. Make sure you have an account because I can't reply if you don't. Also, make sure you have private messages enabled.  
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**_Check my profile for when I'll be posting my next update._**


	9. Chapter 9 Major Fashion Crisis

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**I wanted to send a shout out to all of my worldwide readers! I've got quite a few of you! I'm up to 53 countries represented, to be exact. And, thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.**

**Rated M: angst, language, drama and lemons.**

**There's a new song in this chapter (Regina Spektor - The Call): http://www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

**This chapter is shorter, so that's why I posted it so soon after the other.**

**

* * *

****CHAPTER 9**

**Major Fashion Crisis**

"Alice!" I screamed as I ran into her store at the end of the block. "Drop what you're doing! I've got an emergency!" My eyes darted around the room looking for any sign of her. Not behind the cash register, not hanging up clothes on racks, not changing a display.

I heard the large crash of a box in the back and the tinkling sound of about a million buttons bouncing on the floor followed by the quick patter of tiny feet.

Alice came running out of the workroom door into the front of the store. "What?!" she screamed. "What happened?" She was out of breath, as was I from running the half-block down the street at top speed.

I threw my hands up in front of me while trying to catch my breath. "Okay, you might want to sit down for this." She cautiously walked over to the light pink velvet sofa and sat with her hands in her lap. After a few deep breaths on her part, I spoke. "I've got a major fashion crisis on my hands, Alice."

"Oh, no!" she gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth. "Did you have another intruder? Did they steal your clothes? Please don't tell me they took your clothes!"

"No! Worse!" Her hands were in fists in front of her mouth. "Edward just invited _me_ to the Los Angeles premiere of his new movie, and I don't have anything to wear! Please help!"

Alice's mouth dropped and her hand rested shakily over her chest. "You...want me...to design your premiere dress?" she whispered.

"Of course I do!" I ran up to her and threw my arms around her neck while we jumped up and down together.

After a few minutes of this, she pulled back, and I could see the wheels spinning in her head. She turned around silently and strode toward the back room. From behind I could tell she was deep in thought, a woman on a mission, looking at the clothes hanging on her walls. When we both were through the door, she spun suddenly.

"When is the premiere?" she questioned.

"Friday."

She smacked her palm to her forehead. "Friday?"

"Is that too soon?" All of a sudden I realized that this wouldn't give her a lot of time to sketch and design my dress.

She stomped her food. "Absolutely not! You will get a dress. I just needed to know how long I've got to create you something glorious and unique. Are you flying to Los Angeles on Friday?"

"I think I will wait until Friday morning, yes. I don't want to close the store for too many days considering school is starting next week."

"Okay, well, that gives me two full days to complete it and the rest of today." She tapped her finger on her chin. "What's Edward wearing?"

"I have no idea," I shrugged. "He didn't say. I don't even know if he knows."

"Call him," she demanded, pointing her finger at me. She could be so pushy sometimes.

Pulling my phone out, I made sure she knew that he might not answer if he was busy. It rang only once before he picked up. "I love seeing your name pop up on my screen, Bella."

"Hey," I smiled. "Alice wants to know what you're wearing to the premiere. I figured you didn't know considering you're a guy."

He laughed. "That hurts, dear. I'll have you know that I actually _have_ picked out my suit. Give the phone to Alice."

"Ummm...okay." Handing it over to Alice, she gave me a questioning look.

"I don't know," I mouthed, shrugging my shoulders. She put the phone up to her ear and started smiling instantly. As she oohed and awed over whatever he was saying I started playing with six beautiful silk fabrics she had rolled up on her worktable. A lime green, an emerald green that reminded me of Edward's eyes, a teal, a cobalt blue, a navy and a deep purple. The conversation was taking a long time, so I walked over to her spools of ribbon, making sure to avoid the buttons on the floor, and played with a wide black grosgrain. I never really spent much time in here with her, but I could tell it would be incredibly fun to play around with different combinations.

The spools were kind of heavy, but I was able to pull the black one off and lug it over to the fabric on the table.

"Okay, sounds great. I'll make sure Bella looks gorgeous." There was a pause as her eyes flickered to what I was doing. "Awwwww, you're so sweet," she crooned. "I'll give you back to her now." She handed the phone back to me across the table after writing something on a piece of paper and looked down at my fabric combinations.

"What did you just say to Alice to make her call you sweet?" I asked him as I turned and wandered around the room restlessly making sure not to step on the buttons that were scattered all around.

"Oh, I just told her that she could dress you in sweats and you'd be gorgeous."

"Awwww, you _are_ so sweet."

"I do my best."

"Well, I think Alice probably needs me, so I'm going to get back to her. Thanks for the help."

"Hey, it's no problem. Call if you need my help again."

"I will. Love you, Edward." I heard a tiny gasp behind me. _Shit._

"Love you, too, Bella. Bye."

"Bye?" I said, almost as a question. My eyes were scrunched as I turned around slowly on my heels to face Alice. She heard what I just said to him. She knew that I loved him. _Ahhh, crap. _Before I opened my eyes, she started screeching. Like insane, spider monkey screeching.

"Alice, please tell me you did not just hear that and that an escaped monkey from the Woodland Park Zoo has found it's way four hours west and has taken up residence in your shop."

"Nooooooo," she laughed. "You love him, Bella. You love him!" I think I heard the front window shatter with the high-pitch she just achieved.

"Ugh!" I groaned. No point in hiding it now. I threw my hands up in surrender. "Yes, I love him, Alice. I love him more than I ever thought it was possible to love anyone. And, I've only known him for a few days. Is that crazy? This can't be normal." My head was shaking, my bottom lip nestled in between my teeth.

She skipped over to me and clasped my hand between hers. "Does he love you?"

"Yes. I think he loves me very much." Her face lit up.

"I could tell by the way he was looking at you at the bar. He was blown away by you, Bella. When did you know that you loved him?"

I had to think about it. Was it when he looked at me after fixing up my leg? Was it when he kissed me in front of Jessica? Was it when he kissed me in the kitchen? Was it while we danced? Could it have been the moment my eyes met his outside my bookstore?

"I know I realized it Sunday night, but I may have loved him the moment I met him. I don't really know. The pull I have to him is inexplicable."

"Are you happy?" Even though she always supported me and my decisions, Alice was never a fan of Jake's. She knew what happiness looked like through her own relationship with Jasper, and she never saw it in ours. It took me walking in on Jessica riding him in the reverse cowgirl position screaming, "Stick your thumb in my ass!" to see it, too.

I took a deep breath and nodded my head. "Infinitely so. What he and I have is...the stuff I grew up wishing for every night as a little girl." A tear fell down my cheek, and I laughed as I wiped it away. "He's the love of my life, and I knew it almost instantly."

She wrapped me up in a big hug that made me wonder how she had that much strength. "I'm so happy for you, Bella. So, so happy you found him."

"Thank you," I sniffled.

She wiped a tear from her cheek and smiled. "Well, let's get working on this dress!" I laughed at her enthusiasm. She took my hand in hers and pulled me back over to her worktable. I looked down and saw she'd already roughly sketched out a strapless mini dress with fanned fabric layered from top to bottom.

"Wow, Alice!" I breathed. "That's amazing!" She reached over her sketch and grabbed tiny squares of the silk fabrics and black grosgrain ribbon and dropped it in front of me.

"You have yourself to thank for my inspiration." Her finger pointed down on the silk. "The main fabric is a gradient pattern using these colors" Then she pinched the ribbon between her fingers. "A belt to give it shape."

My eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Yep," she said. "He said he was wearing a dark grey Armani wool suit, and these colors will really pop next to it. You'll stand out in the crowd for sure."

That scared the shit out of me. "No, no, no, Alice. No standing out for me. Look at me! I'm not a movie star!"

"No, you're not, Bella, but you are the Most Eligible Bachelor's girlfriend and future wife."

I couldn't control the hysterical laugh. "Future wife?! You're crazy! We just got together, and you're already planning my wedding."

"Your future is very clear to me." She gathered up the materials and stopped right in front of me. "You are going to be Mrs. Edward Cullen by the end of next year."

I choked on my own spit at her prediction. "You should be put into an insane asylum." But, oh, how I wished she was right. Waking up each morning next to him. Soft kisses placed across my back. Burnt bacon on the stove. That's what I wanted.

She just laughed at me and started draping and fanning the fabric. By the end of the day, she'd gotten the basic shape of the dress and had started sewing and all of those pesky buttons were put back in their box.

The next day at work, I got a phone call from Alice asking if I'd like to come over at lunch for her to do a fitting. I agreed, and headed over at noon. The material laid dreamily against my skin once she pulled it on me. She wasn't nearly done with it, but I could tell it was going to be spectacular. The pleated silk gave the dress so much dimension and texture.

"Oh, Alice! I love you!" She grinned carefully as she had pins stuck in her teeth. Her fingers pulled the two remaining pins out of her teeth and put them in her pincushion.

"There," she said. "That will help me figure out how the rest of the fans should fit in the back around the zipper." She stood back to admire her work. "The colors are just divine with your skin tone, Bella."

I turned around to look in the mirror on her wall and couldn't believe my eyes. It was absolutely beautiful. Not Oscar-elegant, but much more material than a Grammy outfit just like he said. It was young and vibrant but also sophisticated. Absolutely perfect for the premiere.

"Okay," Alice interrupted me. "Time to get out of it. I've got lots more to do, and only a day and a half left." She helped me avoid poking myself with the pins, and I got redressed. She'd brought left over salad and grilled shrimp with her today for us to eat for lunch, so we sat around and just talked for the last twenty minutes while we munched and watched the rain outside.

"I've got to book my plane tickets this afternoon. I did some looking around last night and found a flight out of Port Angeles at 9:00 a.m. Friday morning that connects in Seattle. I'll land in LA with plenty of time to spare to get ready."

"Is he picking you up at the airport? I've always wanted one of those big reunions where you run toward each other in the terminal and you jump into each others arms and everybody starts clapping."

I snapped my fingers in front of her face to bring her back into reality. "Our deal is that he'll be there to pick me up, but those things only happen in the movies, Alice."

"Well, he is a movie star."

I rolled my eyes. Putting the lid back on the container, I stood up and thanked her for the lunch. When I went back to work, I got on the computer and booked the flight. It was landing in LA at 1:00 p.m.

The next day flew by with the anticipation of seeing Edward again. It finally hit me at the end of the day that I was going to see him when I taped the piece of paper on my front door apologizing for the inconvenience for being closed the next three days. While smoothing my finger over the clear tape to rid it of bubbles, my face broke out into an uncontrollable grin at the sound of his ringtone.

_It started out as a feeling  
Which then grew into a hope  
Which then turned into a quiet thought  
Which then turned into a quiet word_

_And then that word grew louder and louder  
'Til it was a battle cry  
I'll come back  
When you call me  
No need to say goodbye _

We'd talked on the phone for hours about what what we'd done all day and what I was to expect at the premiere. To say I was nervous was an understatement. But, he calmed my fears the best he could. He swore up and down that he'd protect me any way he could. And, if it got to be too much, he'd leave the red carpet and go into the theater with me. Screw the photographers, screw the fans, screw the interviewers.

"So...do you absolutely have to go home Sunday morning?" he asked sorrowfully, while I folded clothes into my luggage.

I sighed. "It's not that I want to, Edward, but I've got to get back to the store. I don't have anybody else to open it for me."

"I know," he whispered.

"Now don't start getting all depressed. That gives us half of the day tomorrow, all day Saturday and a few hours on Sunday. I want us to enjoy our time together, not dread leaving again."

"You're right. I'm sorry."

Before I could respond, I heard the doorbell downstairs. "Who the hell could that be?" I asked. Alice had already dropped my completed dress off before I left work, so it couldn't be her.

"You weren't expecting anyone?" he asked.

"No, I have no idea who it could be, especially at this hour." I checked the time again on my alarm clock, and it read 9:00. "I guess I should go see who it is."

"Where's your bat?" he asked, alarmed at the situation.

My hand reached behind the open door and pulled it out from the corner. "In my hand."

"Good. Stay on the line with me until you figure out who it is." He paused for a few moments while I walked down the stairs before speaking again. "I really freaking hate this. First the Jake scare on the beach and then this. Not to mention me scaring you while trying to make breakfast and then Emmett pounding on the door. I wish I was there to protect you."

"No shit!" I whisper-yelled while my head peaked around the wall toward the front door. "Ever since you came around, I've been a danger magnet."

By the light of the moonlight, I could make out three bodies standing on my porch through the glass in the door. A tiny pixy, a tall woman with long blonde hair and an average height woman with long dark hair. I smiled and stood up straight.

"No need to worry, Edward. Looks like I'm being thrown an impromptu going away party." I set the bat down on the stairs and made my way to the front door, swiftly pulling it open.

"BELLAAAAA!!!!" they all screamed in unison.

"Hey, guys," I laughed, while still holding the phone up to my ear. "What do I owe the pleasure?"

Rosalie took a step forward holding up a bottle of champagne in each hand. "We couldn't very well let you leave us for a few days to go to Sunny LA without celebrating. Especially since you're going to go spend that time with your famous hunky boyfriend."

Edward chuckled into my ear. "Put me on speakerphone." My finger pressed the button, and I held it up.

"Who am I speaking to?" he asked.

"Alice."

"Rosalie."

"Angela," she said shyly, before biting the corner of her bottom lip. "We actually never met. I had a cold the night you all hung out at the bar." She was blushing. I knew the feeling.

"It's nice to talk to you, Angela. I'll have to find time to meet you when I come back. So, how are you all planning to celebrate?"

Rosalie chimed in. "Champagne and lingerie!" As soon as I heard lingerie, I threw a dirty glare at Rosalie. She knew that shit embarrassed me.

"Sounds like a bachelorette party," Edward laughed. "I'm sad I'm missing it." I could tell he was smirking.

"Oh, you'll get to see all of it," Alice smiled, while winking at me.

Jesus, this was so embarrassing. "Aliiiiice," I whined. "Shut uuuuuup."

"Alright, you ladies get to your girlie stuff," Edward laughed. "I love you, my beautiful Bella. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

The red crept up on my cheeks at the goo goo eyes and air kisses the girls were sending me. It was obvious that Alice told them before they came over or Rosalie would be flipping her lid. "I love you, too, Edward. I'll _see_ you tomorrow."

As soon as I hit end, Alice started squealing again. "My beautiful Bella? God, that man is a keeper!"

The smile wouldn't go away on my face. "I know." They walked up to me and each gave me a hug.

"Let's get to this!" Rosalie yelled as she made her way to the kitchen. I followed to pull out some champagne flutes. She poured four glasses, and we raised them for the toast.

"To love!" Alice trilled.

"To _true_ love!" Angela corrected.

"To _finally_ getting to fuck!" Rosalie added dramatically. I narrowed my eyes at Alice who cowered behind her bubbling champagne glass.

"I can still see you, you little snitch," I joked. I raised my glass higher in the air. "To finding the one that makes me happy. To finding the one that cares more about me than himself. And, to finding the one that understands me, respects me and loves me for me."

"Here, here. To finding the one!" Angela crowed. _Holy crap, Edward is _the one_._

"To finding the one!" they all repeated. We tipped our glasses back and let the crisp, cold liquid slide down our throats.

After one more glass in the kitchen, we took the party into the living room where they each handed me a box to open. I ripped off the paper of Rosalie's gift first and took the lid off cautiously. Peeling back the white tissue paper, my fingers slid under the straps of the bra on top and pulled it out to show everyone. Black lace. Sheer black lace. The thong underneath was just as sheer.

"Wear that with your dress. The straps are removable. Your boobs will look killer," she added.

"Thanks, Rose. They're gorgeous." There seemed to be a permanent blush on my cheeks tonight. I'd gone through similar torture six months ago when they'd given me heaps of sheer, satin and lacy garments of every color. I'd returned most of the lingerie to the party attendees because it didn't feel right keeping gifts that were given to me because of the wedding that never was. Alice, Rosalie and Angela all insisted I keep the lingerie they'd given me because they hoped I'd go out and find a man or two to share them with. Yeah, right.

"Here, open mine next," Angela said, while she handed the box to me over the coffee table. I took it, and opened this one more willingly. She was always a little more conservative when it came to gifts like these. Her bachelorette party gift was a lovely baby doll that wasn't too provocative.

I gasped when I opened the lid. Inside lay a very racy black corset and panty set. The front dipped down revealing lots of cleavage. "Angela!" I exclaimed shocked. "What has gotten into you!"

She just giggled. "You needed something for the bedroom that would complement Alice's gift."

"For the club," Alice said, as she handed me my last box. This was heavier than the other two. I shook it for good measure, and Alice rolled her eyes. My finger slid under the fancy wrapping paper, and I peeled it back. Lifting the lid on the box, my mouth dropped. Inside I found another beautiful dress. This had a metallic gold corset bodice and a black satin skirt. "Edward said he was taking you to a club Saturday night, and you'd need a dress for that, too."

"You made this as well as my premiere dress?" My hand was over my chest in disbelief. "You did all of this in two days?"

"I sure did! Do you love me or what?" I jumped up off the couch and slammed into her with a hug. Kissing her cheek, I assured her I did.

"You're amazing, Alice. Thank you so much." I went to Rosalie and Angela and kissed them, too, each on the cheek. Topping it off with hugs, we finished one more glass of champagne before they left for the night. It was a quick party, but I was almost grateful. My alarm clock would be going off early in the morning so that I could make my flight.

Exhausted after the long day, I made my way up the stairs with my new garments. The dress slid into the hanging garment bag with my other dress, and the lingerie made its way into the bottom of my suitcase. I wasn't ready to be mortified by nosy TSA agents at the airport.

I settled into bed, anxious for our reunion. My stomach was doing somersaults in excitement. Unable to keep the pure exhilaration contained inside of me, I started kicking my legs in the air and giving spirit fingers.

"I'm going to see Edward tomorrow. To. Morrow. Tomorrow! Holy crap!" I threw my hands over my eyes and started laughing hysterically at how stupid I was for screaming this to myself in my bedroom. As the last belly chuckle rolled out of me, I whispered it one more time. "Tomorrow."

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**I'm incredibly excited for you to read the next few chapters. Ch10: 10,000 words. Ch11: 12,000. Ch12: 10,000. Why so many? Check out the first word after the rating up top and the short description I've given this story. Edward's secret isn't staying secret for long...let the reason for this story commence!  
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**And, if you're wondering, I've outlined this story to be right at 30 chapters with the epilogue.  
**

I got some awesome reviews last chapter. Keep those coming in! I love reading and responding to them._  
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_FOR TEASERS: Follow me on Twitter: parismylove6207_

_If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter. Make sure you have an account because I can't reply if you don't. Also, make sure you have private messages enabled.  
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**_Check my profile for when I'll be posting my next update._**


	10. Chapter 10 Hello Again

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.**

**Rated M: angst, language, lemons.**

**There's a new song in this chapter (Jay-Z - Hollywood): http:/www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139  
**

**Here we go, people. Hang on to your hats. Bella's going to LA.  
**

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* * *

**

**CHAPTER 10**

**Hello...Again**

The flight was only a few hours, but the intense anticipation made it seem like days. Edward had called before my flight left Port Angeles to tell me where he'd be to pick me up at LAX, and when I landed in Seattle, I'd had ten texts from him telling me how much he loved me and missed me. The span when my phone was off while I was flying between the two cities had obviously been too much for him.

_"Ladies and gentlemen, we have started our descent, in preparation for landing. Please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Please turn off all electronic devices until we are safely parked at the gate,"_ the female voice announced over the cabin speakers.

I loved this part of flights. Eager passengers throwing away cups and napkins into the awaiting bags that the flight attendants carried around. Excited voices buzzing louder than during the regular part of the trip. Seat belts clicking and bags shuffling as they're placed under seats. The rare crinkling of the paper bag from someone that was afraid of flying.

As soon as we landed and were taxied to the gate, I stood to grab my small carry-on from the compartment above me. I could barely contain myself. Edward was waiting for me only a few minutes away.

"Welcome to Los Angeles," the flight attendants and pilots greeted, as I walked into the air bridge up to the terminal. The familiar sound of my luggage wheels raking over the metal bumps on the air bridge sent a spark of excitement through me. That's a sound I associate only with flying. After walking through the gate, I scanned the signs hanging from the ceiling looking for the direction to baggage claim. That's where Edward would be. I followed the mass of people as they headed left.

The sun shining through the windows was blinding. It had been oddly sunny in Forks for the past week apart from a few bouts of rain, but it was nothing like this. _This_ was bright and vibrant and alive. I looked down at my clothes and flattened my practical traveling attire wanting to look my best for the man in my life.

Alice had rummaged through my closet and picked out the best clothes for me to wear each day. Since LA would be warm but the plane would be chilly, she dressed me in some cute cutoff jean shorts, a sheer white t-shirt and a black cardigan that I could take off once I got here. The one thing I did not approve of were the heels she put me in. My feet friggin hurt from all the walking between terminals.

Her excuse: "You've heard that Miley Cyrus song! Everybody wears stilettos in LA. You don't want to look out of place."

I'd laughed at her, but inside I actually was afraid at how I'd look in LA next to all of the beautiful women. I was pale. My hair was brown. I wasn't tall when I wore sensible flat shoes. My boobs were okay, but they weren't huge by any means. Would I be as beautiful to Edward when there were countless comparisons near me with larger breasts, blonder hair, and darker skin?

The crowd in front of me was angling toward the oval-shaped, metal belts off to the side. Since I was wearing the heels that Alice had forced me to wear, I didn't have to stand on my tiptoes to see over a lot of the crowd to look for Edward. Alice's daydream flooded my thoughts. I'd love nothing more than to run up to him and crash into his arms. I needed to feel his lips on mine and his breath fanning across my cheeks. My fingers longed for his silky hair and the muscles on his back.

My eyes scanned the people impatiently waiting around the carousel, but they couldn't find the bronze hair of the man I loved. Maybe he was standing off to the side to get out of people's way. Our plane's luggage hadn't come up yet, so I walked around looking for him lugging my bag with me. I couldn't find him anywhere. The room was large with multiple baggage carousels, so I whipped out my cell phone and turned it on. I'd give him a call to see where he was at. It was possible he went to the wrong baggage claim. Maybe _I_ was in the wrong baggage claim.

I browsed over the passengers waiting, and recognized three from my catalog of people that sat near me. Well, that wasn't it. As soon as I heard the tune of my phone completely turning on, I pressed the Contacts button. Before I could hit Edward's number, a message popped up on the screen. _Three new voicemails. _I hit the button for my messages and waited for them to begin. It was Edward.

"Bella..." he sighed. "Jane just called me. I have to go to an interview with a magazine. It wasn't supposed to be until tomorrow morning, but there were some scheduling conflicts...and...I just don't know what all happened. But...I won't be at the airport to pick you up. I cannot believe that this has happened. Please forgive me, baby," he begged. "I tried everything short of quitting. I swear to you that I tried-" and the message cut off. Tears were prickling up in my eyes that he sounded so sad. I wasn't mad at him. How could I be? He tried all he could. I hit the button to listen to the next message.

"Sorry. I got cut off. I have been trying for the past hour to get ahold of Marcus to pick you up at the airport, and he won't answer. I swear to all that is holy that I'm going to fire him if he keeps this shit up. Baby, I want to be there. Please know that I do. But, I'm afraid that you'll have to get a taxi to my house. It's unacceptable, but it's the only way. Emmett was busy, but he said he'd be able to cut out of his meeting a little early and meet you at the house." The message stopped again.

Third message. "Son of a bitch! They need to make messages longer! Anyways, Emmett will be there to let you in and get you settled. I'm sorry he can't make it to the airport in time, but this is the best I could do at the moment. I love you, Bella. Please don't hate me for this." How could I hate him? He was obligated to go somewhere, and he was doing everything he possibly could to make this easier for me. He proceeded to tell me his address and apologized once more before telling me he loved me again.

I put the phone back in my pocket and walked over to the belts. Some luggage was already circling, and I only had to wait a couple of minutes for mine to appear. Pulling it off the track, I turned around and followed the signs to the exit. A line of yellow taxis as bright as the sun waited outside the door. A man in front of me waved me over and grabbed my bags to put in the trunk. Sliding into the backseat, he asked for the address. He whistled.

"Nice neighborhood, miss. You a celebrity?"

I couldn't help but laugh wearily. "Nope. Not a celebrity." He was interested in why I would be going to that neighborhood, but I wasn't about to tell him I was dating Edward Cullen. That was none of his business. He put the car in drive and angled out of his spot on the curb. A couple of honks and brushes with death later, we were on our way out of the airport.

"Do you mind if I listen to some music?" he asked, while looking in the rear view mirror at me.

"Absolutely not. I'm just grateful for the ride." I replied. I watched as he fumbled with the switches on the radio.

_It ain't for everybody_

_Welcome to Hollywood, baby_

Jay-Z. A freaking Jay-Z song! That damn Alice, and that damn Miley Cyrus. To top it off, I was wearing a damn cardigan. The driver was staring at me skeptically in the rearview mirror probably wondering why I was laughing so hard.

My spirits were lifted as we passed along palm tree lined streets. Los Angeles was beautiful. The heat of the late summer sun was glaring down on me through the windows. My cardigan had to go. Forty-five minutes after leaving the airport, we pulled up to a large gated house. Outside next to a monster of an SUV stood the familiar monster of a man that once sat on the end of my bed.

The taxi driver got out to get my bags while Emmett opened the back door for me. Before I could blink, he had me wrapped up in a huge bear hug wiith my legs dangling more than a foot above the ground.

"Bella!" he exclaimed. "How's my brother's girlfriend doing?"

"Hi...Emmett," I squeaked. "I'm doing okay." This was odd. I'd met the man for a few minutes, and he was treating me like his sister.

"Sorry my ass brother wasn't there to pick you up," he joked.

I shrugged. "I don't think he's an ass. Something came up. There's nothing for me to be upset about."

He just looked at me for a second before speaking. "No wonder he loves you. You're awesome."

"He told you he loves me?" I asked.

He blushed. "Well, I kind of tricked him into admitting it."

"How?"

"I started yelling that he was in love in front of everybody, and then he hauled off and slugged me to shut me up."

My mouth was hanging open. "He punched you?"

"Yeah, but he punches like a girl. No offense, by the way. But, it barely stung. Then, he admitted that he loved you."

"I love him, too." That's when I heard someone clear their throat behind me.

I rotated my head and saw the taxi driver standing at the trunk with my luggage. "Oops!" I said, realizing I'd never paid him. I turned back to Emmett. "Can you put me down now?"

"Oh, crap! Sorry, Bells." He placed me back on the ground, but before I could pull my wallet out of my purse, Emmett had handed a wad of bills to the driver and had picked up all of my bags from the road. He slung them into the back seat of his SUV and led me to the passenger door.

"You Cullen boys are such gentleman," I praised.

"Our momma taught us well," he said, while he tipped an imaginary cap at me.

Once sitting in the drivers seat, he pulled up to the gate and pressed the code on the pad to open it. The gates opened smoothly with a quiet click, he pulled forward and we headed for the house. It was a taupe two story home with a Spanish influence. The courtyard in front had a beautiful round fountain, and ivy grew up the front wall. The terracotta tiled roof shown bright red in the scorching sun where the numerous trees were not shading it.

I loved architecture, and from the looks of it, this house looked like it was built in the earlier 1900's. If these walls could only talk, I'm sure they'd have numerous stories of lavish parties with beaded flapper dresses and flowing champagne.

Emmett stopped in the circled drive around the fountain and got out to get my bags. I opened my door and took a step out.

"Wow, it's gorgeous," I whispered in awe.

"Yeah, it sure is," he replied. "Edward loves buying real estate and renovating them to their original character. You should have seen this place when he bought it. It was falling apart. He did the same to the apartment in Paris."

"He has an apartment in Paris?" I loved Paris. It was my favorite city in the world. After I left Jake, I took two weeks to regroup in the French capital. Walking the cobblestone streets. Smelling the fresh breads in the markets. Tasting the wines and cheeses. Reading along the Seine. It was just what I needed.

"Yeah, he bought that a few years ago when he was done with this place. I've never been there, but I've seen pictures. The windows look right over the Seine and Notre Dame Cathedral. Lucky bastard," he muttered, while he lugged my bags through the door. "Follow me. I'll take your things to his bedroom."

My legs followed him up the stairs, but all I wanted to do was head through the house out the back doors and take a swim in that amazing blue infinity pool that overlooked the city. "Wow," I whispered to myself.

Emmett barreled through the door and threw my bags on the bed haphazardly. The room was very airy. It was surprising. I imagined something much more masculine and dark since he was a single guy living here. The light beige walls, white bedspread, warm wood floors and large windows reminded me of the lightness and ease of my home. My body instantly wanted to curl up on the bed and take a nap.

"Well," Emmett began. "I hate to leave so soon, but I've got to get to another meeting with the production company. Edward should be home in an hour or so. He said to make yourself at home, eat whatever you wanted, take a shower, whatever."

I nodded. It would be strange to be here alone for a long amount of time. This home was Edward's, but it still felt foreign to me. It smelled of him, and I saw touches of him around the room, but it was still uncomfortable for the time being.

Emmett walked up to me and placed his large hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. "It's okay, Bella. Nothing to be worried about. He wants you here, and he wants you to be comfortable. Take your shoes off and relax."

I smiled. He was right. I was stressing over nothing. I loved the man that owned this house, and I was going to be seeing him in a hour. "Okay, Emmett. Thank you for helping me with the taxi and my bags."

"Not a problem. I'll just get out of your hair. Don't be alarmed when he comes home. It's not an intruder. This place is locked up tight."

I nodded again, and he turned to leave. Waving, he said, "I'll see you tonight at the premiere. Got to go support my brother."

As soon as I heard the click of the lock on the front door, I took my heels off and wandered downstairs in search of the kitchen. My stomach was protesting not being fed all day. Nerves would probably limit the amount of food I could intake, but I at least needed a snack. Sliding a gorgeous glass paned door to the side, I walked into a kitchen that was just as light and airy as his bedroom. White cabinets and dark slate counters filled the room. Opening the refrigerator, I scanned the shelves for some sustenance.

A bottle of water, a small plate of carrots and broccoli, and about ten pickle spears later, I made my way back up to the bedroom. He had like three unopened jars of pickles in his fridge. I loved pickles. We were more perfect than I thought. As soon as I saw the bed, my body swayed with exhaustion. I could allow myself a small nap while I waited for him. Crawling up onto the covers, I curled into a ball in the small place between my luggage. I was just too tired to move it out of the way.

I was awoken a short time later to the bed shifting.

"I'm sorry. Did I wake you?" I heard a soft, velvety voice say into my ear. My body rolled over and found itself encircled in the arms of the man that spoke the words.

"Edward?" I asked. My eyelids were too heavy from sleep to lift and see for themselves.

There was no answer – only soft lips meeting mine. I'd missed this so much. It took only a millisecond for me to react. His arms tightened and pulled me to his body across the bed covers. My mouth molded around his, and our tongues caressed in longing. I felt his left arm release me and his hand found the side of my face where he brushed the hair away from my cheek and kissed the place that was left bare now.

"I love you, Bella. I'm so sorry I wasn't at the airport. Please forgive me for not being there," he begged.

I forced my eyes open to look into his eyes. "Forgive you?" I breathed. "You don't have to ask for my forgiveness. I understand."

"You're not mad at me?" he asked incredulously.

"Of course not. What could I be mad at? You had an obligation, but you still found ways to make my traveling as easy as possible. I'm grateful for what you did."

He leaned in and kissed me again. "You...are the most amazing woman I've ever met," he said. "I still feel awful about stranding you like that, but I'm happy you're not upset with me."

"I couldn't be mad at you," I said, as I kissed him again. "What time is it?"

He pulled back and looked at the clock on nightstand. "It's four o'clock."

"Crap! I've got to get ready!" I flew out of his arms and off the bed in an instant. My eyes darted around the room at the four doors on the inside walls. "Which door leads to a bathroom? I need to take a shower."

He got out of bed and wrapped his hand around mine. I sighed at the sensation that I'd missed. "Follow me," he said. He led me through one door, and I was taken aback by how large and beautiful the bathroom was in front of me. White marble graced almost every surface.

His finger pointed at a stack of white fluffy towels on the edge of the jetted tub. "There are some towels for you. Take your time and relax. We've got plenty of time before the car comes to get us. I'll leave you alone." He was backing up toward the door before I could even respond.

"Wait!" I ran up to him and threw my arms around his waist to stop him. "I love you, Edward. Thank you for all of this." He kissed me softly on the forehead before cupping the sides of my face and kissing me on my lips.

"Go, get in the tub," he instructed with a pat on my butt. "I'll bring your bag to you after you're settled in and starting to prune." I giggled and then turned around to skip to the jetted slice of heaven. After filling the tub, I sunk myself into the hot pulsating water and silky bubbles he'd set next to the towels. The soft whirring and massage on my muscles lulled me back into sleep.

A cool hand on my forehead woke me. "You ready to get out?" he asked quietly, snapping me out of my dream.

"How long was I asleep?" I asked.

"I've been sitting in here for about thirty minutes, so for at least that long. Don't worry. There's still over an hour before Marcus gets here." Sitting up, I noticed the bubbles had all but disappeared from the tub. I was completely exposed to him. He had seen my top half naked before, and I knew that I shouldn't be embarrassed to show my body to the man I loved, but I was still a little shy. Especially since he said he'd been sitting in here for half an hour just looking at me.

He could sense my trepidation as he stood up to grab me a towel. He looked me in the eyes and said, "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on, love. Don't be embarrassed." The rose that was blooming in my cheeks may have been masked slightly from the tint that was already there from the warm water. He sure did have a way of making me blush.

His hands wrapped the towel around my shoulders and led me to the walk-in shower. He fidgeted with the controls silently to get it to a comfortable temperature and then took the towel from me, pushing me into the glass enclosure gently. I stepped in, closing my eyes, and let the water cascade through my hair and down my skin. Two hands joined mine moments later while they ran through my hair. These hands had shampoo on them and were massaging my head as they lathered my mahogany strands from behind.

The man attached to these hands turned me around once they were done soaping me up and allowed the water to rinse out the soap slowly. I leaned my head back, enjoying the strong streams of water on my scalp.

My eyes remained closed as I felt his body press up against mine while grabbing for something from the tile cubbyhole in the wall. Another soap squirted into his palm before he started raking his fingers through my hair again. His lips met mine, and I opened my mouth to him while he paid close attention to the tips of my tresses. After thoroughly coating them, he ran his slick, strong hands down my back, massaging each muscle on the way down as the water rinsed out the conditioner. I moaned into his mouth and trickles of water found their way onto our tongues as they themselves massaged each other.

"Edward," I whimpered. He lead me back to the tile wall one step at a time, holding me to him the whole way, kissing me like his life depended on it. I gasped at the shock of cold tile when my back came in contact, but I did not care. My eyes still had not opened from when I first stepped into the shower. His hands had traveled to my sides and were inching their way up at a painstakingly slow pace. Our breaths were ragged and short. His heart was beating so rapidly I could feel it against mine. They beat in unison. Two hearts calling out to one other.

The hands that were worshiping me with love and affection had cupped the sides of my breasts and were massaging those now, as well. His mouth dipped from my own and followed a tickling rivulet of water down my chest. Wet. Everything was wet. The water from the shower head. My hair. My body. His body. His mouth. His tongue. The place between my legs. He circled my peaked nipple with that wet tongue, and I cried out in pleasure.

"Oh God, Edward." He hadn't even touched me in the place I needed him most, and I was already on the verge of orgasm. "Please touch me," I begged. As his hand traveled down my stomach, complying with my request and not teasing, my skin began to goosebump. I had needed this for so long. My body had craved his touch since he had touched me briefly that first morning. His thigh came forward, moving my legs apart for him.

I felt his long fingers graze down between my legs and slowly slide between my slick folds over my most sensitive bundle of nerves. I threw my head back onto the wall at the feel of the release building in my stomach. Unhurriedly and calculated, he stroked two fingers along the length of my wetness and around my clit. Panting at his touch, I grabbed his shoulders and pulled his mouth to mine, consumed by passion. He groaned, sending a vibration through me, and I could feel his dick twitch on my stomach. He was so hard, so big. The tip of his erection was slick, so I gingerly reached my hand down and curled my fingers around him, running my thumb over the head. "Ung," I heard him grunt.

Without so much as a word, I felt him pull away. I groaned at the loss of his touch but felt him drop to his knees. _What was he doing? _Lifting one of my legs over his shoulder, he buried his face between my legs and his flattened tongue swept slowly through what he had been working on with his fingers. "Edward!" I screamed before taking hold of his wet hair. He inserted two fingers as he sucked and licked my clit meticulously. My mind went blank besides focusing on the pleasure he was bringing me. In and out, he moved his fingers. Side to side, around, over, front to back he washed his tongue over me. With one more curl toward my g-spot and a perfectly timed nibble around my sensitive nub, my muscles clenched violently, and I crashed around him with a scream of ecstasy. "Yes, Edward! Oh God, yes!"

My hands let go of his hair as soon as the waves rippled through me, and I grasped for the wall so that I would not fall. I was unsuccessful in finding something to anchor myself to in time. Instead of falling ungracefully, though, his strong arms caught me as I slunk to the marble tile floor. I opened my eyes for the first time as he cradled me to his warm body.

"I love you, Bella," he said quietly before kissing my lips, tongues brushing. I could taste myself on him. "You should probably finish up in here and get ready. I'll be downstairs if you need anything."

I used my hands to grab his arms. "Wait...you...what about you?" I asked, blinking in confusion and from the water that was dripping into my eyes.

"It's my job to make you happy."

"But, Edward..." He silenced my protests with his lips again.

When he broke away, he tucked my hair behind my ear. "You may have not been with a man before that cared enough to only please you, but I'm here to show you how it should be." With one more chaste kiss, he stood up and helped get me standing on my own two feet again. When he stepped out of the shower and wrapped the towel around his waist, he winked. "Tonight. We'll have the time to do what I want to do to you tonight." Then he turned and left. _Tonight._

He was right, though. I had lost count of how many times I had fulfilled Jake's needs with nothing in return. I figured that was normal because he was the only man with whom I'd ever been intimate. Although Edward made me feel loved and appreciated by doing this, I did not want to be like Jacob. I would please him individually as much as he pleased me.

I took a few minutes more in the shower cleaning myself up before I stepped out and wrapped my body in the same towel he'd had draped around my shoulders. I found my toiletries bag on the counter and felt my way through it with my hand for my blow dryer. After doing my hair in a tousled, wavy hairdo, I put on my makeup. I decided to make it a little more dramatic than usual because this was a big event.

Once completed with that, I tiptoed out into his bedroom and grabbed my garment bag. After unzipping it, I pulled out the dress that I'd wear tonight. What Alice had designed was magnificent. I'd never seen anything like it, even in her store. The gradient she'd described to me was a fluid change from one color to the next. The lime green flowed into the emerald. The emerald transitioned into the teal before meeting the cobalt, navy and purple. The colors were placed in pleated fans layered all the way down the dress. The black grosgrain ribbon accented my waist as a belt. To add more drama, she'd hand painted black-dyed tips to the silk fans.

After putting on the lingerie Rosalie had given me, I lowered the zipper in the back of the dress and put it on backwards so that I could zip it back up. Once it was closed, I turned the garment around carefully so that I did not snag the fabric. I found my black stilettos that Alice had packed and made my way toward the stairs after a few moments in front of the mirror fixing minor details in my makeup and hair. I was ready as I'd ever be to go show Edward.

As I made my way down, I heard someone jogging on the wood floor below toward the stairs. It was him. He took one long stride and started running up the steps two at a time before he lifted his head and saw me standing there. He stopped instantly, mid-stride and stared at me with wide eyes and a box in his hand.

"Oh, my God, Bella," he breathed. "You look...gorgeous...amazing...those words don't describe it well enough."

I laughed lightly at him, while my cheeks blushed again. I carefully spun on the step, to make sure I wouldn't fall down the stairs in my heels, and asked if he liked what he saw.

"Yes!" he sputtered. "That's one of the most beautiful dresses I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. It's damn privileged to be on the most beautiful woman in the world, too." While he was saying this to me, I took the time to scan what he was wearing. It was a charcoal gray suit with a white button down dress shirt underneath. The top two buttons were undone, and he was without a tie. It was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen. His hair was its usual sculpted mess, but it almost had a small fauxhawk shape to it.

"You look so incredibly sexy," I told him before throwing my hand over my mouth. I didn't mean to say that. He'd been complimenting me with words like gorgeous, amazing and beautiful, and I went straight to sexy. He deserved more than that. "I mean, you look so incredibly handsome."

His long, lean legs brought him up the stairs to me. Dropping his mouth to my ear, he whispered, "Don't be embarrassed to call me sexy, Bella. You're incredibly fucking sexy yourself. I love this dress on you, but from what I've seen, I like you naked even more."

"You're making me weak at the knees again," I whined, leaning into him. "I don't want to fall down the stairs."

He laughed and wrapped his arm around my waist. "I have something for you," and he opened the large, flat box in his hand. Inside was an exquisite necklace. "Are...those...diamonds?" I stammered, running my fingers over the chain made of probably a thousand tiny diamond stones.

"Yes, they are, and this is a 23-carat green tourmaline." He pointed to the incredibly large stone that hung down like a pendant that was encircled by the same tiny diamonds. It was the color of his eyes. "I had Alice call me the other day after she started designing your dress so she could tell me the color, and when she said that it had green, I knew what I was looking for."

"Edward...you can't give this to me. It's too much." He was insane. This had to cost him a fortune.

"Too bad," he said, as he reached into the box and took it out. Before I could protest any further, he'd walked up behind me and had started clasping it. The stone hung heavily over my chest, and my fingers picked up the tourmaline so my eyes could inspect it.

"It's beautiful," I breathed. "But, you really shouldn't have. You don't need to buy me gifts for me to love you."

He turned me around to face him. "I know I don't need to buy you gifts. But, because I love you, I want to." He leaned down and kissed me softly. He was probably being careful to not mess up my makeup, but I didn't care. I'd touch it up in the car. My lips returned his kiss much more furiously while my hands pressed his body up against the wall of the stairs. His hand grabbed the underneath part of my hair near the base of my neck while we both groaned.

He broke the kiss, gasping for air. "We need to get going before we skip out on the whole damn thing," he laughed. I grumbled from the loss of contact. "Marcus should be here any minute. Do you have a purse?"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot my clutch upstairs on the bed," I said, while cleaning lip gloss off of my face.

"I'll get it," he called, as he took the few steps up to the landing. Once he emerged from the room, purse in hand, he led me down to the front door with his hand on my lower back. Marcus was waiting with the back door of a limo open. We made our way there, and Edward told him that we could go straight to Mann's Village Theatre. I got in first and noticed we weren't alone. A cat call rang through the limo when I slid into the seat. It was Emmett.

"Stop hitting on my girlfriend," Edward playfully scolded his brother as he sat next to me. The door shut, and moments later we were pulling away. There was another woman in the car with us. She was in her early thirties and very pretty with a blonde hair. _Emmett's date?_

She slid back along the seat and extended her hand to me. "I'm Jane. Edward's manager." I remembered her from the phone conversation. I shook her hand.

"Hello, Jane. I'm Bella. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, too, Bella. I've heard a lot about you, and boy was Eddie here right about how pretty you are." I blushed again. "Amazing dress. Who is it?" she asked.

"Ummm...my best friend Alice Whitlock is a designer. She's up in my hometown. She designed this for me." I played with the ends of one of the silk fans while I told her about it. The ride was easy. It didn't seem to take long before we were pulling up to the theater. My eyes widened at the hysteria outside the car. I could hear it before I could see it. There were thousands of fans screaming for autographs and hundreds of photographers yelling for the perfect photo opportunity.

"Are you sure you're going to be able to handle this?" Edward asked. Unsure if it was really the truth, I nodded, unable to speak.

"She can't walk next to you Edward," Jane interrupted.

Edward snapped. "_What?_"

"No way," she replied. "You said we weren't making a comment on her, so I'm not allowing you to take her on the red carpet with you. That would be thrusting her into the spotlight, and you yourself said you didn't want to do that to her."

I sat there confused. Was I not going to be able to go? "Edward?"

"She's walking in with me," he said defiantly. "She went through the trouble of dressing up and looks amazing."

"She can go on the red carpet, Edward, but she cannot be seen next to you. She can walk with Emmett." Emmett smiled and Edward got angrier. Before he could blow up at Jane, I placed my hand on his arm.

"It's okay," I whispered. "This is your job. I'm just your date. I had nothing to do with this movie. Go do your interviews and take the photos with your costars. Emmett will keep me company." His eyes were pleading with me to be quiet and take his side. "It's okay," I whispered again. It really was. I was still going to the premiere with him. We'd just be separated for half an hour or so.

"Bella, you're not just my date. I love you, and I want to share this with you."

"I know you do, but we haven't gone public, yet. The focus would be taken off the movie and you and your costars and put on us."

"She's fucking smart, Edward." Jane jumped in. "Listen to her."

He paid no attention to her. "Please, Edward. Don't worry about me. I'll see you when you're done." He nodded silently and leaned in to kiss my cheek. The doors opened just then, and photographers started going crazy. Security was not holding them back well enough, so Edward pushed me toward Emmett at the front of the limo. Emmett grabbed my arm as I stumbled, and Edward got out pushing them back with his own hands. Jane followed, unaffected by the crowd.

My new date banged on the partition at the front of the limo, and it lowered.

"Yes, Mr. Cullen?" Marcus asked.

"Take us around the block and pull up again. We're going to try to separate ourselves from Edward. I think they got a picture of him kissing Bella. I want to throw them off and act like she's with me."

This was insane. We made our way around the block through the crowds and traffic and pulled up to the curb again ten minutes later. The door opened, and Emmett stepped out reaching a hand back in the car for me. I put my heeled foot down on the pavement and pulled myself out. The flashes from the cameras were blinding, and the screams from the crowd were deafening.

"Who's the girl, Emmett?" a photographer asked. "Who are you wearing?" "Are you here to support your brother?" "What's your name, beautiful?"

I looked at Emmett, and he shook his head 'no' to my unvoiced question of, "Do we answer?" I nodded, and we made our way onto the red carpet. His left arm was draped across his body holding onto my upper arm, and his right hand was on my lower back. He was being protective, just like Edward. These Cullen men were something else. An announcement blared through the speakers over the chaos, and I heard them call out Edward's name. The girls in the stands went wild as he jumped up on a platform, taking the mic from the emcee.

He was up there, and he was talking to the people through the mic, but his eyes were scanning the red carpet looking for me. It took him a matter of a few seconds to spot my dress, and I saw his body relax instantly. He knew I was safe. He thanked the cast and crew for such a wonderful time, and then he was on to his next obligation a minute later.

Emmett helped my apprehension by pointing out lunatic fangirls in the stands. Signs asking Edward to marry them, unfortunate clothing choices with his picture plastered all over them, adult women crying once he signed their poster. It was nuts. He was just a regular guy that happened to star in movies.

The large number of "I love you's" I heard screamed from the stands was starting to give me a headache. I rubbed my temples and muttered, "Sucks for you because he loves me," and Emmett started to laugh at how disgruntled I was.

"Let's go. It looks like he's nearing the end of the line." He led me toward the entrance of the theater, and we stopped a couple of feet behind Edward as a twenty-year-old woman jumped the barrier and slammed into his chest. The unexpected force knocked him back into me, which in turn caused me to fall into Emmett. Luckily, he was a big guy and was able to hold us both up as security dragged the girl away.

Edward turned around immediately and grabbed my face. "Baby, are you okay?" He was running his hands up and down my arms looking for injuries.

"I'm fine," I said, a little shaken up. I took a deep breath. "I'm okay." Much to my surprise, Emmett's surprise, Jane's surprise and every person in attendance's surprise, Edward wrapped his arms around me and placed a kiss on the top of my head. My arms remained at my side. Should I put them around him? Do I keep them like this? I really wanted to put them around him.

"Thank God," he muttered. "I thought I'd hurt you. What a fucking crazy bitch!"

"Edward?" I murmured into his chest. "We are still outside. Everybody is watching this."

"I don't give a damn," he replied. "I'm just happy you're alright. We can go in now. That's enough for one night." His hand grabbed mine, and I reached back for Emmett's hand to pull him along. The three of us walked in through the theater doors looking like a kindergarten class crossing a street toward a private room.

Jane came bursting through the door a moment later. "Do you realize what you've just done, Edward?" she yelled. "Rumblings about the girl Edward Cullen just kissed on the red carpet are rolling through the crowd at mach speed. My phone has already rang four times in the mere minutes since you did it."

I looked up at Edward in alarm while he just shrugged his shoulders. Her phone rang again. "There's nothing to say besides 'no comment,' remember?" he said. "You are representing me, and that is our understanding."

Did he really think that would squash the hysteria? I'd read magazines before. I knew they were out for blood when they found out about a love interest of any major actor. It was splashed across every magazine on every news stand in every supermarket and on every street corner.

"Fine, Edward. We'll leave it at 'no comment' for now. But, you better understand that they will find out information about her, and it will be published whether it's correct or not." Edward turned his eyes to mine.

"Bella, I gave information about you to Jane," he said. My eyes widened. _What kind of information? _He threw his hands up. "Now wait. I only gave her your name, your age, your dad's name and that you own a bookstore. She has not published it and will not publish it unless you and I both agree to it. I don't think it's necessary right now. They have no idea who you are, and they won't for a while. Nobody knows who you are besides the four of us in this room right now, Marcus and then your family back home. If they do any digging, they will only come across that story saying I danced with someone in Houston. It'll be like trying to find a needle in a haystack."

I took a deep breath. "What about the paparazzi in Forks? They'll know you weren't in Houston."

"I don't think they picked up on the fact that I was seeing you. If they had, it would be in a magazine right now and it's not."

I agreed. "Okay, I trust your judgment. Let's leave it at 'no comment' for now."

"Okay," he smiled. "Let's get in the theater and watch this movie. Emmett, will you take Bella's arm and lead her in? If we try to minimize our close proximity, maybe people in there won't talk." We all walked to the doors that were being held open for us, and we made our way down to our reserved seats. Edward and Jane walked in front of us, and Emmett led me in his same protective stance. We took our seats, me between the two men, and waited for the lights to dim.

Several people walked up to Edward and Emmett to say their hellos including the other actors in the movie. I met his costars Maggie, Heidi and Benjamin. The two women seemed very nice – a little too nice. I didn't like the feeling they gave me. Their eyes seemed to rip his clothes right off of him. _Step off, ladies._

Choosing to ignore it so that it didn't ruin my evening, I focused my attention on the people around us. There were lots of celebrities in attendance. I felt that I should be a little more shell-shocked at this, but for some reason I wasn't. Maybe it was because of the time I'd spent with Edward. Here was one of the most famous and lusted after men in the world, and he was just a regular man to me. Behind closed doors and out of the spotlight, he did normal things like look for new books and go to bars to drink. If he was like that, they all were probably like that.

The lights dimmed and he leaned into my ear. "I wouldn't normally stick around for these things because I hate watching myself in movies, but I did invite you all the way here to watch it, so we're going to."

I shivered at the way his breath fanned across my neck. I wanted to turn my head and kiss him, but even though it was dark, I knew dozens of eyes were trained on him at this very moment. I shook my head to let him know I heard him. He stayed where he was at my ear. "You are so breathtakingly beautiful, Bella. I love you more than you'll ever know." I turned to him, our lips just a hairsbreadth apart much like that first night in the booth at the bar, and saw the love he felt for me in his eyes. Every fiber in me screamed to kiss him, but I knew it would be a mistake. The people directly behind us would see it. People in the adjoining rows would see it. Everyone would see it. But, I wanted to.

He shook his head infinitesimally 'no' as I sat there contemplating this. I released the breath that I'd been holding before nodding at him again silently. It was so hard to hold myself back. Being in love makes you want to do stupid things, but I couldn't do that to him. I turned my head back to the movie and watched in contemplative silence.

Every so often, he would brush his shoe up against my foot or leg or trail his fingers along the length of my arm as he rubbed his arms pretending to be cold. I tried not to react to his touch because I knew he was doing this secretively. To reassure him that I appreciated what he was doing, I would take the necklace in my fingers and place the green stone to my lips briefly like a short kiss.

During the lone love scene in the movie, he grabbed my hand under the armrest and murmured that I should shut my eyes. I followed his instructions until I felt his squeeze. It was over. The sounds that I heard from the speakers were hot. I wondered briefly if that's what he actually sounded like during sex. My ears wanted to find out. My body wanted to find out if he could do to me what he had done to her.

When the lights went up and the crowd applauded, he led us out a side door of the theater. Emmett shuffled me through winding hallways a little quicker than I liked in my shoes until we reached a door in the back of the building. Edward turned around to face me. "Marcus is parked in the back so that we avoid the photographers. Let's go, baby." He placed his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side before Jane opened the door.

_Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash._

Cameras were flashing in rapid fire. There Edward and I stood in the doorway, his arm around me, my arms circled around his waist looking up at him in adoration. It took only a second for Jane to react and slam the door shut. The yelling on the other side of the door was loud. They were hungry wolves. And, they'd found their prey.

"Shit!" Edward yelled. He let go of me and started pacing the floor. "How did they get past security? This is a private alleyway!" Jane had pulled out her cell phone and was calling someone.

"Rebecca, we've got a problem. I need you in the office in one hour. Call Rachel in, too. We've got to release a statement for Edward. The paparazzi have multiple photos of him and his girlfriend together at the premiere."

"Nooooo!" he roared. "You are NOT releasing a statement."

"Edward," I said. Jane kept talking on the phone, ignoring Edward, instructing Rebecca on where to start.

"Edward," I said a little louder. He wasn't listening to me. Nobody was listening to me or paying any attention.

"Edward!" I screamed. "Jane has my permission to release the fucking statement!"

All three turned to me in shock. It didn't take him long to rush up to me.

"You don't understand what that means for you, Bella. They will print information about you that's not true and very hurtful no matter what we say. It could damage your career. They will be outside your business and your house when you go to work in the morning and when you go home at night. Your father will be questioned high and low about you. They will find out about Jake and your mother. Do you understand that it's not simply releasing a statement verifying that we are together? This is going to change your life."

I took a deep breath before responding. "I understand that it will change my life, Edward. But you don't seem to understand that I am okay with that. You told me on the phone that you will love me forever. What does that entail? If you plan on loving me forever, then I am going to be by your side forever. Eventually they would catch on when I show up to events with you or when we get married or whatever."

He stood there, not even flinching at the mention of marriage. "Are you sure this is what you want? Do you want me? Do you want to live this life? Are you willing to sacrifice your freedom and privacy to be with me?"

Without hesitation, I spoke loud and clear for him to hear. "My answer is yes to all of your questions."

He smiled before shaking his head. "Let's get to the car, then." We walked back to the door. Before Jane opened it, he grabbed my hand. "Don't let go...ever." I knew he didn't only mean his hand. He meant of him, his love and our life.

"Never," I whispered. Jane threw open the door and we were hurtled out into the screaming photographers. Edward's hand was tight on mine as he pulled me through the crowd. He wasn't going to let go.

"_Is this your girlfriend? What's your name? Where is Tanya tonight?_" Huh? Tanya Paul?_ "Are you still fucking Tanya? Did you throw her away for this slut?_" My head turned to follow the voice that asked the last three questions, and it fell on a man with long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was smirking and holding up a camera.

"Excuse me? What did you just say?" I asked him.

In my confusion of why this man was saying such things, I hadn't noticed that Edward had stopped dead in his tracks. He spun slowly and walked over to the man that was heckling us. I reached out a hand to grab his arm to try to stop him - to try to snap him out of whatever had overtaken him. It would be my fault if he ended up in jail. All my fault for responding to what he had called me. But, I wasn't stupid. Edward was much stronger and bigger than I was. In reality, there would be no preventing an altercation.

Edward walked up and got as close to the blonde man as he could. When he spoke, I cowered at his tone. It was menacing; almost a growl.

"Not this time, James. Stay away from her, or I will kill you with my bare hands."

Emmett ran up behind Edward then and grabbed his shoulders. While trying to yank him back, Edward was yelling obscenities at the man. Everything was a freaking flurry of activity. Flashes of cameras were going at record pace. The noise had grown to a thunderous level as everyone feasted on what was going down. I felt lost in this mess that was unfolding before my eyes. _All my fault._

But, wait. What did Edward mean by 'not this time'? What did this have to do with Tanya Paul? _Holy shit. Is he dating her?_ Questions were swirling in my head when Emmett grabbed my arm, pulling me along with him and Edward. My feet stumbled over the cracks and dips in the pavement as I tried to see the man one more time. _Who was this James?_

Emmett threw us in the back of the limo, right as my eyes connected with his. They were black and evil. His mouth was curled into a snarl. His hands were crushing the camera in his grasp. The door slammed, and he was gone.

"Marcus!" Emmett yelled, snapping me out of my haze. "Take Jane back to her office. The rest of us are going to Edward's." When the partition went up, Emmett looked at the two of us. "We need to have a little chat."

When we arrived at the house, I dragged myself in behind Emmett, and Edward followed behind me. Neither of us had spoken a word to each other. I was too afraid to know the truth. But our relationship couldn't go any further until I knew what was going on between Edward and Tanya, and what this James guy had to do with it. The man that I'd pretty much just told I wanted to marry stormed past me when we got in the foyer and made a beeline for the liquor cabinet in the wood paneled dining room.

Emmett and I sat down across from each other at the table quietly while Edward poured himself five shots in a row of vodka. After he replaced the bottle, he grabbed a full bottle of scotch and sat down at the head of the table. No glass. He took the lid off and brought it to his lips. I wanted to stop him, but I let him do what he wanted. This was not the time to cross him. Looking at Emmett, I could tell he felt the same way. He was going to let him drink himself into a stupor.

After five minutes of silence and chugging of the amber liquid, he slammed the half-empty bottle down on the table, splashing some on his clothes.

_"I FUCKED UP!"_ he roared. I jumped at the volume of his voice. If it wouldn't have looked childish, I would have thrown my hands over my ears.

"What did you do, Edward?" Emmett asked.

"You want to know what I did? _What I did?_" he seethed through his gritted teeth. "I. Fucked. Tanya. Paul."

I felt myself die inside as the last words left his mouth. I had been betrayed once again, cheated on by someone that I trusted and gave my whole heart to so that I could find happiness. And, once again, my happy little world that I had created had been ripped from my grasp with no warning. He told me that he loved me. He told me this with such ease, such potency...such cruel deceit. Now I knew. Everything he'd ever spoken to me was a lie.

Despite the familiarity of this betrayal, this was a thousand times worse than what Jake had done to me. The love I felt for Edward had consumed me so fiercely and so quickly. There was no going back once I invited him into my bookstore. There was no going back when I made room in the booth next to me at the bar for him to sit. There was no going back when he asked if he could kiss me again, to share my breath and my soul. He owned my heart from those moments on. My face scrunched up, feeling the impending scream of agony in my lungs rushing up my throat. I was not going to be okay.

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Confused? Sorry to leave you hanging like that...actually, no I'm not :) Take a deep breath because it's only just begun. Next chapter is a doozie. It's the longest I've written at 12,000 words.**

**Check my profile for LOTS of pictures for this chapter. The airplane outfit, the house, Rosalie's lingerie gift, the premiere dress, the premiere suit, the tourmaline and diamond necklace. Go take a look!  
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I got a bunch of awesome reviews last chapter. Keep those coming in! I love reading and responding to them._  
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	11. Chapter 11 Emotions

**AUTHORS NOTE: This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?**

**Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.**

**Rated M: angst, language, lemons.**

**This is a music chapter (Three songs added - only "Angel" is incredibly important to listen to - it's awesome how the song sets the scene): http://www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

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**You got some 'splainin' to do, Edward! Here's a huge chapter for some mighty big events.  


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**CHAPTER 11**

**Emotions**

"What did you do, Edward?" Emmett asked.

"You want to know what I did? _What I did?!_" he seethed through his gritted teeth. "I. Fucked. Tanya. Paul."

I felt myself die inside as the last words left his mouth. I had been betrayed once again, cheated on by someone that I trusted and gave my whole heart to so that I could find happiness. And, once again, my happy little world that I had created had been ripped from my grasp with no warning. He told me that he loved me. He told me this with such ease, such potency...such cruel deceit. Now I knew. Everything he'd ever spoken to me was a lie.

Despite the familiarity of this betrayal, this was a thousand times worse than what Jake had done to me. The love I felt for Edward had consumed me so fiercely and so quickly. There was no going back once I invited him into my bookstore. There was no going back when I made room in the booth next to me at the bar for him to sit. There was no going back when he asked if he could kiss me again, to share my breath and my soul. He owned my heart from those moments on. My face scrunched up, feeling the impending scream of agony in my lungs rushing up my throat. I was not going to be okay.

Had he been with her while I was waiting for him, dreaming of him, instead of at an interview? Is that why he didn't want to be with me _that_ way? Would there have been traces of her on his body? Did he distract me in the shower so that I wouldn't see him washing away her scent and her sweat and her saliva? Would all evidence of his cheating have been gone before _tonight_?

"I know. You told me," Emmett said much too calmly for the chaos that was roaring in my ears, a mere second after Edward spoke. "Is this where you're going to tell me why it's still haunting you?"

I opened my eyes to look at Emmett, surprised by his question. What did he mean by _still haunting _him? It was enough of a distraction to quell my inner turmoil for the time being.

He took another large swig of scotch before answering. "I fucked her when we filmed our movie earlier this year."

I fell back into my chair holding my stomach about ready to break down from the crippling fear that had just ravaged my insides. He had _not_ betrayed me. There was no secret tryst while I waited for him in his bedroom after hours of traveling to see him. There was no other reason why we did not have sex other than we did not have the time. He was faithful to me, devoted to me and in love with me. I was a fool for far different reasons than I had thought.

The fact that I jumped to the conclusion that he had cheated on me without getting all of the facts sickened me to my core. Maybe I was more screwed up by Jake than I wanted to admit.

Though I was upset by this new development of my psyche, I felt the heavy weight of devastation lift from my shoulders because I could deal with Tanya as one of his former lovers.

"I made the mistake of sleeping with her when she was dating another man."

In a moment of clarity, one that I hadn't had since that door opened in the alleyway, I whispered, "James."

"James," Edward spat. "You would think my conscience would stop me, but no. I fucked her until he caught us."

"Has James been causing problems since then?" Emmett asked.

"Yes," he groaned. "I've taken three other women out on dates these past five months and each time he's been there hassling us." He paused to take another drink. "And, lo and behold he's there again tonight!" His eyes dropped to the table in front of him. There was something else -- something he wasn't revealing. I could see it in his eyes. There was a fear that went far beyond this harassment.

He dropped his head to his hands, shaking it. "The hassling I can handle, though, Emmett. That's nothing. I deserve it, I guess." He took a shaky deep breath. "The death threats, the fucking descriptive death threats are what I cannot. You have no goddamn idea what this man wants to do to me."

My heart sank to my feet. James was sending death threats to Edward because he had slept with his girlfriend? Death threats? He was terrified of James and what he might be capable of doing. He was terrified for his life and had hidden it all along. Why hadn't he told anybody?

"Why haven't you gone to the police?" Emmett asked.

"He's got photos," he whispered.

"Blackmail," Emmett concluded, smacking his hand on the table in anger. "How much?"

"So far five million. He says all of this is my punishment. If I ever go to the police, the photos will be sent to every magazine with one click of the mouse, and he'll kill me either before he's taken down or after he gets out."

"Do you still have the letters?" Edward nodded confirming that he did.

"Why did I even hope it would be any different this time with Bella?" he continued, swinging the bottle around, seeming to snap out of his sad state. "He fucking knows she's more to me. There is no way that he would doubt it now after what happened tonight. What if she's next?"

I gasped, realizing this was far more than a man out to exact revenge on Edward. Now I was involved. James had looked me in the eyes with such hatred after Edward went off on him. Perhaps I was no longer just involved. Perhaps I was...the target.

Edward stood up suddenly with fierce eyes, knocking the chair onto the floor and rushed to me way too fast, scaring away what little strength I had left. He was very drunk and very irate and so much stronger and bigger than I was. I flinched when he got too close with his furious stare, not sure what he was going to do or why he was going to do it. Before I could blink, Emmett jumped over the table and tackled him to the floor, crashing against the wall.

"What the fuck are you doing! Get off of me, you son of a bitch!" Edward yelled at Emmett, taking a feeble swing at his head which wasn't even close to connecting. He looked over at me as I backed away from them, pleading with his eyes. "I would never ever hurt you, Bella! I love you! I can't believe what I've done to us – what I've done to _you_!"

Tears were falling from his eyes, which was in turn making me cry. The two men rolled, knocking a large potted ficus to the ground with a crash. "I was only coming over to comfort you. I love you, Bella. I don't want to lose you. Get the fuck off of me, Emmett!"

"Let him go!" I sobbed. The scene in front of me didn't seem real. Emmett was fighting his brother, threatening to fray a relationship that once was so strong. Edward was wasted and crying, fighting to hold onto me. Everything was swirling. I felt like I was passing out. My hand found the table as I steadied myself, swallowing hard.

"Are you sure?" Emmett asked, still wrestling with him on the floor. "He's too drunk. He can't control himself. He could hurt you."

"Let him go," I hiccuped trying to fight back the tears. "He's not going to hurt me." Emmett released his arms, and Edward shot up, swaying to the right. He ran over to me once he got good enough balance and wrapped me in his arms roughly.

"I love you, Bella. Please forgive me. I didn't know what I was doing at the time. I didn't understand the ramif...ramifications. I haven't slept with anyone since then because I've been so disgusted with myself."

I didn't know how to respond to this. He was a sobbing, stuttering, slurring mess.

"I love you so much," he sobbed. "I want to marry you, baby. I've never wanted that with anyone but you. You are my life now."

I knew that he was probably only saying this because he was so inebriated and lost at that moment, but I couldn't help but want the same things with him. I nuzzled my face on his tear-stained shirt. "I love you, too, Edward. Though it's difficult to take, this changes nothing between us. I'm not leaving. I promise you. I can handle this. _We_ can handle this _together_. But, you have to tell me everything. Please sit down here at the table, stop drinking and tell me how it all got to this point."

He shook his head and sat down. Emmett put himself between us, obviously not trusting him in this state. Edward took a deep breath to try to sober himself up. "I haven't been the best person since I became an actor. I swore I'd never let it go to my head, but the first time that someone famous flirted with me, I had sex with her that night." I simply nodded, not showing any emotion so that he would continue. "It became a game for me to see how many women I could bed that I worked with on set."

"How many, Edward?" I asked. Once again, I didn't really want to know, but I had to know to move on. Was it fifty? One hundred? Several hundred?

"I've slept with 29 women." For some reason, I was relieved. That was nowhere near what I figured it would be. Rosalie had slept with more men than that. Hell, even Emmett was snickering. He'd obviously slept with more than 29 women.

"Twenty-nine? That's all?" I asked.

_"That's all?"_ he questioned incredulously. "I never wanted to be that guy, Bella. No offense, Emmett. But, I wanted to be in love with the woman before I slept with her. But, the fucking fame went to my head, and I craved the attention."

I thought back to earlier tonight. "Did you sleep with Maggie and Heidi?" I asked.

"Yes and yes," he answered.

"And, you obviously slept with Tanya or we wouldn't be here," I stated.

"Yes, I did. When we were both starting out, we were in a small movie together. We started dating back then. I thought I loved her, so I slept with her. She broke it off, though, when I took my first big role. Claimed it wouldn't be fair to her for me to leave her alone."

"Okay," I said, prodding him for more information.

"When we both signed on for the movie we started filming seven months ago, I didn't like that she was seeing this James guy. I thought he was a complete dick. I told her that, and she slapped me. The next second, though, she'd thrown herself on top of me. We were having sex in her dressing room before I knew what was going on."

I shuddered at the image of those two together and the passion it sounded like they shared -- two things we had not even experienced, yet. "You can move past the gory details," I begged.

"This continued for two months behind James' back. We went to her house after the wrap party, which is where we usually had sex. We'd gotten caught by a crew member once on set and didn't want to take the chance of it getting back to James."

"Go on," I said, picturing too many little details.

"We were in the middle of having sex, when her front door slammed open. Someone was running up the stairs before I could even get off of her. Her bedroom door burst open and James rushed me grabbing my leg and pulling me off the bed, trying to beat the shit out of me. I was stronger and faster than him, though, and I was able to get away."

He took another deep breath. "I didn't expect him to retaliate, but I was just unlucky enough that he was paparazzi. I'd never known that until he showed up outside every event I was at and tried to expose me. When I took the women out on dates, he was outside the restaurants. He started yelling stuff about me fucking Tanya, and each of them took off. When I stopped going out, that's when I started receiving the death threats by mail with copies of pictures of Tanya and I having sex." He put his head in his hands and dug his fingers through his hair.

"He knows where you live?" Emmett asked.

"Yeah, he's been staked outside my gate several times, too," he responded.

"Shit, that scares me," I said. What if he was out there right now? Could he find a way in? Edward pulled his head up.

"I will never allow him to hurt you or lay a hand on you, Bella. Never. I'll kill him if he tries."

I looked at Emmett who was looking worried. "Do you think he'd try to hurt her?"

"I don't know what he's actually capable of doing," Edward said, taking my hand. "He's angry with me, Emmett. If he were to..." he trailed off, not finishing his thought. "My threat to him tonight surely didn't help things."

"No, I bet not," Emmett sighed. He stood up, grabbing the scotch bottle and took a drink from it before placing it back in the liquor cabinet. I could tell his mind was off in the distance, thinking intently about something.

He snapped out of it and looked at me. "Bella, why don't you go up to bed. I want to talk to Edward about some stuff. You've had a long day."

"But, this involves me now," I protested. "Shouldn't I be here if you're discussing it?"

"Bella," Edward said. "Emmett's right. Go up to bed. I'll join you later. There are some things he and I need to discuss."

I started to speak again, but he placed his finger on my lips. "Please, baby," he insisted. There was nothing I could do but give up. He took my hand and led me to the staircase. Before letting go, he leaned down and kissed me hard. He tasted of expensive liquor and salty tears. Not a winning combination. Those two never went well together. "Don't worry about anything," he whispered. "You're my love and my life. I can't have anything happen to you."

"I can't have anything happen to you, either, though," I countered, pulling on one of his shirt buttons.

"Nothing will, Bella. That's what I need to talk to Emmett about. Please just try to get some sleep."

I already knew the answer to the question that was flittering around in my mind, but it had to be asked. Sleep would be nearly impossible if I didn't hear him say it to me. "Do you still love her?"

His face fell. "I never loved her, Bella. I've never loved anybody but you. I promise. My love and my life. You. You're all I want and need."

Standing on my tiptoes, I kissed that salty, liquored mouth with all of my might and then headed up the stairs.

Not at all interested in wearing lingerie to bed, I found his closet and pulled out an old ratty t-shirt with the initials "EAC" on the back. I wondered what the "A" stood for. He'd moved the luggage to the floor when he came home earlier, so I just had to pull the covers down to slide in.

The events of the day replayed over and over in my mind. It had started out so great. Even though he wasn't at the airport, I was still excited. Our time in the shower had been amazing, and the way he looked at me on the stairs made me weak in the knees. He absolutely loved me. I couldn't believe I had ever doubted that. I reached down to my chest and felt that I'd never taken off the necklace he'd given me. Moving my hands to the back of my neck, I unclasped the diamond chain and placed it on the bedside table looking at the stone that matched the color of his eyes...and hers. _No, Bella. Don't think of that._

As I laid there in the dark, I thought I saw the shadow of someone in the room. Rolling over, I called out Edward's name.

"It's not Edward," a familiar threatening voice called. My heart rate skyrocketed. He had found a way in. I sat up in bed, clutching the sheet to my chest and stared my worst nightmare directly into his dark, evil eyes.

"James," I gasped.

In a flash he launched himself across the bed causing my head to crash into the headboard, stunning me for a few seconds. His strength overpowered my flailing arms as I tried hitting him. He always seemed to know what I was going to try next. Finding the will, I let out a blood curdling scream hoping Edward and Emmett would hear me. James clamped his hand down over my mouth too hard, stifling my lungs and my scream for help while I continued to struggle. The pain in my hands and arms and head was excruciating. The weight of him on my chest was suffocating. But, his cold, clammy hand creeping up my thigh toward my panties made that all disappear. _God, please don't let him do this to me._

"Bella!" I heard someone yelling in the distance. "Wake up, Bella! You're having a nightmare!" My eyes flew open as someone – someone with warm, comforting hands – grabbed my arms while I was thrashing around in the sheets. My heart was pounding out of my chest from the all-consuming fear, and I couldn't catch my breath.

"James isn't here. You're safe. It was a nightmare," Edward spoke softly into my ear as he laid in the bed parallel to me, gently holding my wrists which were still twitching. His warm body, unlike James' in my dream, pressed up against mine from my head to my toes trying to calm me. A wracking sob broke through my chest. None of it was real. James wasn't trying to rape or kill me.

I felt Emmett lay on the bed on the other side of me. The two of them were surrounding me in protection. Emmett propped himself up with his elbow and ran his large hand across my forehead, wiping the sweat and hair away while Edward tried to soothe my panic.

"Calm down, baby," Edward whispered, taking my trembling hand. "I'm sorry you're scared. I never wanted this to happen." He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed each finger.

"I'm going to stay up here the rest of the night," he spoke to Emmett but not breaking eye contact with me. "It was stupid of me to leave her alone. Go stay in the guest room down the hall. It's too late for you to go home."

"Are you sure you're sober enough to be alone with her?" Emmett questioned.

Edward looked at me with nothing but love and ran the backs of his fingers along my cheek, wiping the tears away. "I've never been more sober in my entire life. Her screams were enough to pull me out of a week-long binge."

"Okay," Emmett said. "I'll go make sure the alarm is set and the gate is secure before I go lay down. I'll see you in the morning."

Edward stood up and stripped off his clothes except for his boxer briefs. Crawling back into bed, he pulled my still shaking body to his and kissed my head. "I'm so sorry, my love. I will always be there for you," he said quietly. "Just call out for me, and I'll be there if I'm not already. I love you more than anybody has ever loved another. I'm sorry that I did this to us."

"Edward," I whispered. "I don't think you have any idea how much I love you. I'm not going anywhere. We can get through this. Please just hold me tonight, though. I need you. Don't let go...ever."

"Never." He tightened his arms around me, and I finally felt comfortable enough to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When I awoke the next morning to the bright light streaming in the window, I squinted to shield my eyes. My head was resting on a warm chest that rose and fell with each even breath. "Edward?" I rasped, my voice thick with sleep.

"Mmmhmm."

"Did last night really happen or was that all a dream?"

He sighed. "Unfortunately, it all happened...except James attacking you. That was a nightmare."

"Okay."

We laid there for a few minutes in silence. I had a decision to make with this new day. Would I allow James to scare me for the remainder of this trip when I had no control over what he did, or would I enjoy my time with Edward to the fullest and put James in the back of my mind? If I chose the latter option, I knew that I could not put James completely out of my mind because he _was_ a danger, but I could put him further down on my list of worries. At least for the next day and a half.

I lifted my head. "What's on the schedule for today?" I knew he had told Alice that we were going to a club tonight, so that's why she'd made another dress. But, he'd never mentioned it.

He ran his fingers through my hair. The muscles on his chest flexed with the motion. "Jane has me doing interviews this afternoon, but I'm free the rest of the day."

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Eleven."

"I slept that long, and you didn't wake me up? How long have you been awake?"

"About three hours."

"Why didn't you wake me up? Your back must be killing you." The situation made me feel awful. Out of concern for me, he'd stayed in bed. On top of that, he probably had a raging hangover on top of a full bladder. I tried to squirm out of his arms, but he tightened them around me, anchoring me to his chest.

"I told you I wouldn't let go of you," he replied. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

I laid my head back down.

"Emmett came in a while ago to check on us before he left. Said that some entertainment shows are already running our story. Jane called early this morning and left messages saying she had more on you, including that you're an author. I guess a simple Google search brought up a load of information."

I grimaced. "Did they run the photos from James?"

"Yeah," he replied, shifting so that he was laying on his side and my head was on his upper arm. His fingers ran a trail up and down my spine through his shirt that I wore. "She said the photos weren't that bad, though. It looks like I'm just confronting him. They have Emmett dragging us both off, but it sounds almost like news stations are on our side. Someone reported that James called you a slut, and I was defending you. The truth for once."

"Wow, wonder what my dad will think of that one. His daughter the slut." Just then, I realized I never told him I was leaving. I threw my hand over my mouth.

"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting up on his elbow, dislodging my head from my comfortable spot on his bicep.

"I never told my dad I was coming here. He'll probably be so angry. How could I not tell my dad that I was going on a vacation? What is wrong with me?"

Edward reached behind him and grabbed his cell phone. "Call him," he said. "I'll run to the restroom and then take a shower to leave you alone. Come in if you need me."

He got out of bed, and I fell back into the down pillows. Dialing my dad's number, I prepared myself. Two rings later, he picked up.

"Chief Swan here."

"Hi, dad," I said, trying to sound cheerful. "You'll never guess where I am."

"You're in Los Angeles. Alice told me already. I went by the bookstore yesterday to bring you lunch, and I found your sign. I kept trying to call you, but you never answered. Finally gave up and called her."

Okay, doesn't seem _too_ mad. "Sorry about that. I was probably on the plane. You could have left a message."

"I don't know how to work those cell phones," he muttered. "Too many instructions. That's beside the point. Why didn't you tell me? And, why are you there?"

"Ummm...well, I could tell you that it was a last minute decision, but that would be a lie. I guess I just forgot with everything that was going on that I should tell you my plans."

"Is that so? What had you so busy that you couldn't call your dad?"

"I was getting ready to go see my boyfriend, and I had a lot to plan," I muttered. Boyfriend? I guess that's what he was to me.

"Your _boyfriend?_" he asked incredulously. "In LA?"

"That's where he lives," I replied. "Do you remember what Garrett told you about me and that guy at the bar? We're dating. He's an actor."

"Is it somebody I know?" he asked.

I took in a breath before answering. "Do you know Edward Cullen?" The line was silent. "Dad? Are you there? Did we get disconnected?"

He started laughing. "_You're_ dating Edward Cullen?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Charlie?" I asked, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. I had noticed the inflection. _You're._"Do you not think I'm good enough for him?"

I heard a click in front of me and looked up. Edward was leaned against the door frame.

Dad continued to laugh. I could feel the hurt building in my chest, and it had to be written on my face. My hand started rubbing over the place where my heart beat. He was my own father and the only relative I had left in this world. How could he laugh at me? Tears were welling up in my eyes again. I had been crying too much lately. As I opened my mouth to speak to my dad, Edward ripped the phone out of my hands.

"Chief Swan," he said, addressing my father professionally. "I don't know what you have against your daughter and I dating, but I love her for who she is and not where she's from or anything else that you may assume I would look down upon. Think what you may of me, but I intend to spend the rest of my life putting a smile back on her face, even after you have wiped it away. Have a good day, sir." He hit end and threw the phone on the bed while still standing in front of me. His hands were on his hips, and he was breathing through his nose.

Shocked. Turned on. Mortified. Loved. All things I felt at the same time. The phone rang next to me a few seconds later. It was my father's number. He knew how to use caller id but not how to leave a message on a cell phone? I picked it up and answered, not saying anything.

"Bella? Darlin'? I'm sorry I laughed at you." He was speaking very quietly. I could tell he felt bad. A loose string on the hem of Edward's shirt became very interesting while I waited for him to continue. "There is no excuse. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, dad," I murmured. Edward leaned down and kissed my hair before walking back into the bathroom.

"No, it's not," he replied. "It wasn't nice of me to laugh at my one and only daughter who has always been there for me. Please forgive me."

"I forgive you."

"So, tell me about him. From our brief, one-sided conversation he seems like a fairly passionate guy. It also seems that he may love you, too, which is always a plus. That deserves two thumbs up." I could tell he was really trying hard. It made me laugh.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he loves me."

"_I do love you!"_ Edward yelled through the bathroom door. I giggled.

"He does love me," I corrected. "And, I love him. It all happened very fast, but it feels right. I'd really like your support."

He paused before continuing. "My full and undying, honey."

"Thanks, daddy."

"Well, it's time for me to head out. Going fishing with Harry today. When are you coming home?"

"Around four tomorrow."

"Sounds good. Be careful. Big cities can be dangerous." _You have no idea._

"Alright, dad. I'll do my best. And, hey, avoid gossip magazines for the next few days, okay?"

"Okay," he laughed. "I'll do my best. I'd like to keep this on a need-to-know basis." I knew he rarely went to the store, so I didn't see how he'd ever come across one of the magazines, but I wanted to make sure he didn't see them before I could explain where and how they got their information.

"Catch lots of fish!" I exclaimed.

"Hoping to," he said. "Bye, Bells. See you tomorrow."

I stood up from the bed and walked to the bathroom door after I hung up. The shower was running, and I could hear splashes of water hit the tile. My feet padded their way down to the first floor and toward the kitchen. Along the way, I made a point of checking out the other rooms of the first floor. There was an office, the formal dining room we sat in last night and a living room that lead out to the infinity pool. I got a bottle of water out of the fridge and made my way outside to the patio.

Sitting on the edge of the pool, I stuck my feet in the crystal clear water. It was warm and wet and reminded me of our shower together yesterday.

"Enjoying the sun and water?" someone asked behind me. Turning I saw Edward slipping out of the door with his white towel pulled tightly around his hips. What a gorgeous man.

"Yep, the sun we don't get very often in Forks. Water we get too much of but not in form of warm pools. It's more like cold, torrential downpours."

"The weather seemed pleasant when I was there," he said.

"That was an anomaly. Don't expect that when you go back. Especially since it will be nearing winter while you're filming."

He sat down on the ground and put one leg on each side of me into the pool. Leaning back I rested into his chest.

"I like you in my shirt," he whispered.

"What does the "A" stand for?" I asked. "What's your middle name?"

"Anthony."

"Ahhh, I like that name. It's always been one of my favorites," I told him.

"Are you one of those girls that have had their kids' names picked out since she was five?"

"Six," I joked. "I actually have only my daughter's name picked out. Mary Renee."

"Why those names?" he asked, kissing my temple.

"Well, Alice's given name is Mary Alice Brandon. She's my best friend in the whole world. And, it's a form of my middle name Marie, which was also my grandmother's name."

"And, Renee?"

"That was my mother's name. Her side of the family has a tradition of choosing the maternal grandmother's name of the baby for the middle name. If I have a little girl one day and she has a daughter of her own, that baby would have the name Isabella for a middle name. I guess it depends on if my daughter chooses to carry on the tradition, but you get it."

"Isabella is a beautiful name. I wouldn't understand it if she didn't use it," he said.

I shrugged. "My mother wasn't so lucky with her middle name. Hers was Athendora. When it came to me, she decided to break the tradition, wishing they had done it for her. I should have been Isabella Siobhan Swan for her mother. Like how it rhymes?" I laughed. He shook his head. "Neither did my mom, so she chose to use my paternal grandmother's name."

"Why don't you have a boy name picked out?" he asked.

"I figured that if I had a son, I'd let the father pick."

"Oh, yeah?" Edward replied. "So, what if I was the father of your children? Would you be okay with me starting the tradition of your family for the male side?"

Was he just playing around with me, or did he really want to be the father of my children? Marriage had been mentioned, but that was crazy to think about this early. I decided to play along if that's what he was doing. "What would the name be, then?"

He hugged me tighter and swayed us while he thought. "You seemed to like the name Anthony, and if I go with my dad's name for the middle name, the handsome little devil would be Anthony Carlisle."

"I like that," I said. He was kind enough to take me into consideration and named him Anthony. And, I'd always wondered what this parents were named. "What's your mom's name?"

"Esme."

"That's unique...very pretty."

"It suits her well," he said, before looking back into the house. "Hey, I hate to get up, but you might want to get ready to head to the hotel with me where they're doing the interviews."

"Go to the hotel with you? You're taking me along?"

"Of course. I'm not leaving you here alone today. I can't risk you taking a nap and waking up like you did last night without me there." He shuddered as he remembered.

"Okay," I said, as he helped me up. "You really don't mind? What if someone sees us together?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "The world already knows. No point in hiding it now."

I took a deep breath to let that all sink in. "I'll never understand why so many people care."

I went back upstairs and took a quick shower before dressing. When I came back down, Edward was waiting with my purse. "Marcus is outside."

We walked hand-in-hand to the sedan and got in. "No limo this time?" I teased as I clicked the seat belt. I heard a grumble from the front seat but couldn't make out what the words were. Edward's head snapped toward Marcus. He didn't say anything to him, but I could tell they were silently exchanging words through the rear view mirror. _What did he say to set Edward off like this?_

When we pulled up to the hotel, he grabbed my hand and pulled me out. There were no paparazzi to be seen but that didn't mean they weren't there. Edward led me inside but ran back outside to catch Marcus before he left. Something was definitely wrong. He had his finger pointed in his face, telling him off. The only thing that riled him up like this was something that involved me. When Edward made his way back through the revolving doors, I looked at him in concern.

"What is that all about?" I asked as he backed me up toward the bank of elevators.

"Absolutely nothing you should be concerned about," he replied sharply, as he pressed the up button.

I laughed. "Okay, Edward. Say what you will, but that was most definitely about me."

"Just forget about it, Bella." He was angry. Was he angry at me?

"Are you mad at me?" I whispered. "What did I do?"

He glared at me. "Mad at you?" he asked disbelievingly. "I could never be mad at you. That is solely about him!" His voice was rising while our elevator made its way to the top floor. He raised his hand and almost pinched his forefinger and thumb together, leaving a minute distance between them. "Marcus is this close to getting fired. I almost did it just then for what he said!"

"What did he say?"

"I won't tell you. He's a sniveling bastard. I refuse to repeat it to you."

My hand grasped the front of his shirt, and I shoved him up against the wall. "Tell me what he fucking said right now. I have a right to know. It's obvious he has a problem with me. I've known that for a long time. I've just chosen to ignore it the best I can. If he said something that's bothering you this much, I need to know!"

He hung his head knowing he wasn't getting out of this elevator without telling me. "He...called you...a gold digging bitch."

I started laughing. Gold digging? hahahaha. A bitch? I'm sure I could be, but I didn't think that I was being one any time today. "He's seen my house right? Does he not realize that it takes money to have a house like that?"

"I have no idea what's running through his head, but I've had my suspicions since we were in Forks. I haven't been able to confirm it until he said that, but I don't understand how he can get off calling you a gold digger. Shit, your house probably cost more than my house here. And a bitch? You're the nicest fucking person I've ever met!"

God, he was hot when he was pissed. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Stepping into the hallway, Edward took my hand, pulling me to the only door on the floor. He knocked and it opened immediately. Inside the suite, about a dozen people ran around. He led me to where Jane was sitting on the couch waiting. She stood and took him into another room while I sat watching everyone bustle around. They were gone for about ten minutes before she returned.

"So, how was last night?" she asked as she occupied the place to my left on the couch.

"I mean no ill will, but I don't really want to talk about it," I told her. Edward and her were very tight. I got that. But, she didn't need to know about his drunken confessions about Tanya and James. That was for him to tell her. He walked out of the room ten minutes later with makeup and a different shirt on.

"Television interviews," he said, sitting down next to me on the sofa. "They should be starting in a few minutes. Jane said they have two hours slotted for this. What do you want to do once we're done?"

"Eat!" I exclaimed. We'd been too busy this morning to really think about food. Now that I was sitting there doing nothing, my stomach was grumbling. Right on cue, it growled, echoing around the room. He laughed and jumped up to go into another room. When he came back, he had a banana in his hand.

"Thank you," I said sweetly, giving him a light kiss on the cheek.

"Lunch sounds good," he smiled. "I could use a juicy cheeseburger to soak up the scotch."

"You drank a lot last night. But, you were surprisingly not hung over this morning."

"Oh, yes, I was," he chuckled. "I just have to be good at hiding it. Comes with the territory."

Jane stood up from the couch and motioned for Edward. "Time to get started. We'll be done in two hours," Jane told me. I looked at my cell phone and noted the time.

The room was incredibly quiet because everyone was in the other room. I could only hear the sound of the wind outside the highrise hotel and the air conditioner pumping cold air into the room. My head found comfort on the arm of the sofa and felt myself falling to sleep. For a brief second, it crossed my mind that would be a bad idea, but I was too tired to counteract what was happening.

I was shaken awake by a concerned looking young man. "Miss? Are you okay? You were whimpering and crying. I think you were having a bad dream." I sat up on the couch and flattened my hair, which was sticking straight out from static. I swallowed and looked around me. The hotel room. Edward was still in his interviews.

"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine. You're right. It was a bad dream."

He sat on the sofa next to me and stuck out his hand for me to shake. "The name's Seth. I'm a photographer for People." _Oh, shit._ "You're Bella Swan, right?" _Double shit._

"Yes," I croaked. "How do you know me?"

"Everybody knows you now, Bella. You're the one that tamed the infamous Edward Cullen."

"He's not the bad guy you obviously think he is," I said, slightly perturbed. "Wait! Dammit! Don't print that. I'm so sorry. I'm new to this. I need to learn when to keep my mouth shut."

"Hey," he threw his hands up. "I'm just a photographer, not a reporter."

"Thank you," I breathed in relief. Just then I heard a door open behind me. I spun on the cushion to see Edward making his way toward us with annoyance written on his face.

"Who are you?" he asked Seth, not showing any amount of kindness.

"I'm Seth Jared," he said, extending his hand out to Edward like he'd done for me. "I'm a photographer with People. I sat in on your interview about twenty minutes ago."

"Right," Edward muttered, never shaking his hand.

"Edward!" I scolded. "Seth has been really nice to me these past few minutes. He woke me up because I was having another bad dream."

His eyes flashed with concern, and he bent down to his knees next to the couch to take my face in his hands. "You had another nightmare?" From his face, I could tell he berating himself for not being there this time.

"It's okay," I assured him, patting his hand. "Seth woke me up. He's been really nice trying to get my mind off of it." Edward looked over at him.

"Thank you," he said. "I wish I could be with her at all times, but I'm starting to realize that won't be possible." He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and leaned in to place a kiss on the tip of my nose. "Sorry I wasn't here, baby."

"It's really fine," I said again.

"Okay, then. I'm done here. Let's grab some food and head back to the house." He helped me to my feet, and we made our way out to the car which was waiting outside the door. Two paparazzi had gathered and were taking our photos as we got into the back seat. I noticed the glare that Edward gave Marcus before he slammed the door shut. This was not going to end well between them.

"What do you want to eat?" he asked me once we were on the road.

"You said you were craving a greasy cheeseburger. I'm down with that."

He smiled. "Take us to Hole in the Wall."

We pulled up outside a building that looked a little out of place in LA, and Edward opened the door not even waiting for Marcus to get out. He ran us inside up to the counter and looked at me before ordering. "Trust me?"

"Yeah," I choked, but covered it with a cough. _Fuck. _He'd given me no reason to not trust him. I was the fucked up one. "Of course," I tried to say with a little more gusto.

"We're going to need two of these. Beef. Pretzel Bun. Onion Mayo. Cheddar. Lettuce. Tomato. Extra Pickles." He turned to me and winked. _How the hell did he know I loved pickles?_ "Bacon. Avocado. Regular Fries. And, a can of Coke with each."

He paid, and led us to a table outside under the canopy. Our name was called 10 minutes later, and he ran in to get it from the counter. The burger was huge. How did he expect me to eat all of this and the fries? He lifted his pretzel bun and picked off all of his pickles, throwing them on my burger.

"What are you doing?" I asked, popping one of them in my mouth. Why the hell would he get pickles if he wasn't going to eat them?

"I don't like them," he responded, scrunching up his face.

"Then why do you have three jars in your fridge?"

"Good, you found them."

"Huh?"

"I bought those for you. I noticed you had like sixty-two jars of pickles in your fridge back home. I figured you had a thing for them."

I couldn't contain my laughter. "I really hope you're exaggerating. I honestly don't pay attention to how many I have. When I find myself down that aisle at the store, I always buy a jar. But, yes, I do love pickles."

He wiggled his eyebrows at me, causing me to hit his arm. "Shut up, you perv!" I snorted.

When I had eaten all I could, Edward snatched some of my fries even though he had some left from his own order. He claimed that "those few looked tastier." It was cute.

"Mr. Edward?" I heard a tiny voice say behind him. Whoever said it was very short. I couldn't even see them. He turned around to see who had said it, moving just enough in his chair for me to get a glimpse. Behind him was the most adorable little girl with brunette pigtails no older than three or four holding up a napkin and a marker timidly. "Mommy said I could ask for your audo...audographt."

I covered my mouth to stifle the giggle from the off-the-charts cuteness level.

"Of course, sweetie," Edward said to her, taking the napkin and marker from her hands. "What's your name?"

"Bree. B-R-E-E. Bree."

_Holy crap. _I wanted one...or ten.

I watched as Edward signed the napkin.

_Dear Bree,_

_I hope when I have a daughter of_

_my own she is as pretty as you._

_Love, Edward Cullen_

My uterus seriously groaned. I heard it. It said, "Have babies with this man or you're stoooopid."

We cleared our table after Bree turned around and ran to her mother and headed out to find Marcus in the parking lot. On our way home, I turned in my seat to face Edward.

"So...Alice made another dress for me. Said something about going to a club. Is that still a plan?"

His face turned down. "I had cut that out because of what happened last night. I really don't want to take the chance. That was one of the things Emmett and I talked about last night after we asked you to go upstairs. We both think that would be putting you in unnecessary danger."

I laced our fingers together in his lap. "When I woke up this morning I made a decision. Personally, I don't _want _to be scared of him. It's obvious that deep down he bothers me, but I don't want to live my life terrified of where he's going to be or what he's going to do next."

"Bella," he protested. "I don't feel comfortable taking a risk like that."

"Hey, I understand where you're coming from. You want to protect me, but you'll be there all night, right?"

"If we were to go out, yes, I'd never leave your side."

"Then, we should go to the club. I trust that you'll take care of me. Plus, Alice made a sexy dress, and I don't want to disappoint her by not wearing it."

He blew a huge burst of air out of puffed cheeks. "Fine. If it's what you want. But, Emmett's going with us."

"Thank you!" I exclaimed, launching myself out of my seat and tackling Edward into his door.

Marcus cleared his throat because I was not properly restrained.

"Oh, fuck off, you big grump!" I grumbled while I laid a kiss on Edward's lips. I could feel Edward shaking under me with his laughter. "You want bitch? I'll give you bitch!" I laughed.

"Yeah, fuck off!" he chuckled, wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing me back.

Fifteen minutes later we drove through the gate. Emmett's beast was parked in the circle drive. When we got inside, Edward called for him. I heard a distant "In here!" called from the direction of the office I'd seen this morning.

We followed his voice into the room. On the wall was a very large flat-panel television that was not there before. Emmett was messing with a remote. On the screen were six different views of the house and grounds.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Something else we talked about last night," Edward said. "Emmett had a video security system installed while we were out today. He didn't like that James knows where I live."

"Sure don't," Emmett agreed. "Nothing's happening to my little brother or my new little sister while they're here." I blushed.

Edward walked over to the television and started playing with the remote, switching the cameras. There were views of the gate at different angles, front yard, front door, back door to the pool, and foyer/stairs. Emmett started explaining how it worked to Edward, and I decided that if we were going out tonight, I wanted to take a nap.

I walked over to Edward. "I'm going to go take a nap so that I'll be refreshed for dancing tonight."

"Okay, baby," he said, turning around and kissing me on the lips. "Don't worry about anything. I'll come up and check on you every now and then to make sure you're okay."

I nodded and spun on my heels to leave the room. As I made my way into the foyer, I was very aware that they could see me because of the cameras. It was like "Big Brother" was watching me...literally.

Instead of a nap, I took a bath first to relieve some of my tension. My mind was too busy thinking about the insanity of all of this to fall asleep. When I was nice and relaxed, I wrapped a towel around myself and made my way out to the bed. The sheets were so soft and comforting it felt like I was laying on a cloud. It didn't take long for me to fall asleep.

Flashes filled my dreams. None of it made sense. Rain. Snow. A white dress. Green eyes. My chandelier at the store. My dad. Jake. Black eyes. A black gun. James.

Screaming, I flew up into a sitting position still holding the towel to my chest. A second later, Edward was on the bed, pulling my curled up body into his lap.

"I'm here, Bella," he comforted me.

"Just a dream. Just another dream," I breathed.

His fingers pulled the hair out of my face and rubbed down my spine. "It will always be just a dream. He won't ever get to you."

"I know."

"Are you sure about going out tonight?" he asked. "You seem to be more affected by this than you want to admit."

"I'm sure," I nodded. "I don't _want_ to be scared, Edward. It will just take some time to get over my fears."

"Alright," he said sighing. "Emmett said he'd meet us there. He went home to get ready."

"Is he bringing someone with him?"

"No. His whole purpose of going is to be extra protection."

I laughed a little. "He went into the wrong profession, I think. He should be a bodyguard."

He chuckled. "I'll be sure to tell him that." Standing, he put out his hand to help me up. "Why don't you go do your thing. We're going to stop off and grab a bite to eat before we hit the club. Marcus will be here in an hour and a half."

"Sounds like a plan," I said, as I made my way to the bathroom taking my garment bag with me.

When I emerged an hour and a half later, I was all primped and ready for the evening. The gold and black dress that Alice had designed for the evening fit like a glove at the corset bodice. Instead of fussing with my hair too much, I just flattened it and put it back into a shiny, sleek ponytail that had a little volume at the top. I grabbed my clutch and headed downstairs.

Edward was watching television in the living room. He turned it off when I walked in.

"Wow," he breathed. "You're stunning."

"Thanks," I curtsied, in my peep-toe heels. "I'm ready to have fun and stop this freaking out shit."

Looking over what he was wearing, I noticed that we would look pretty perfect together tonight. He had on black slacks and a black button down that accentuated every right thing about his chest, and that was all of it.

"Let's go," he smiled.

When we pulled up outside The Lair after eating a small dinner, we headed straight for the door past the line of people waiting. I heard several gasps and then more "I love you's" from those that recognized him before the bouncer opened the rope, ushering us in without the blink of an eye. A woman met us at the door and led us up a set of stairs to a private VIP lounge.

"What do you want to drink?" he asked me.

"A lemon drop martini."

"I'll have a Heineken." She nodded and left the room. I walked over to the balcony and looked down at the crowd that was swaying to the music. It was erotic how they all moved together like one unit. Edward walked up behind me and pressed himself up against my backside. I stood up straight and leaned my back into his chest while his arms snaked around my waist, pulling me to him. We ourselves started to sway to the music and the bass, completely lost in it.

"Hey, you two!" I heard from behind us. Edward turned us so that I could see that Emmett had arrived. "How's my two love muffins?"

This guy could make me laugh quicker than anybody else. "We're good," I yelled over the music. Just then a different woman walked in with a tray holding our drinks. She placed them down on the table next to the black leather sofa and left after she'd eyed Edward up and down. He didn't even seem to notice. We sat around talking for a while before Emmett got up and left the room.

Edward's lips met my neck as soon as the door shut. "Mmmm," I moaned, dropping my head back as he licked and tasted my flesh. I was well on my way to being drunk at that point and so was he. Leaning me back so that I was flat on the sofa, he placed kisses from my collarbone to my jaw.

"Your neck has been calling me all fucking night," he breathed while he hovered above me. "Pulling your hair up like this is so goddamn sexy. You have no idea what you are doing to me." With his knee, he spread my legs apart and settled himself between them. With one jerk of his hips, he had ground his erection against me.

"Oh!" I gasped. Jesus Christ he was hard.

"Do you feel that?" he asked. "Do you realize I've been like this since you came in the living room?" He ground into me again. My eyes rolled into the back of my head at how good this felt. I was so wet for him already.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Emmett yelled, walking in on our display. Edward jerked his head around to see him covering his eyes and turning to the wall.

"Knock, dumbass!" Edward yelled back.

"Why the hell would I knock when this is my lounge, too, shit for brains?!" he yelled back.

"Fine," Edward grumbled, getting up and adjusting himself. I righted my dress and smoothed my hair before standing. When I got to my feet, I stumbled to the right and grabbed the wall. I was either a little more drunk than I thought or really uncoordinated when I was horny.

Edward extended his hand to me. "Let's dance," he said. We made our way down the stairs to the dance floor. When we found an open spot, the music changed; a deep, rattling bass sounded through the club.

"Got a little Britney Spears 'Breathe On Me' for you now," the DJ announced. The temperature down on the floor was stifling, and I instantly felt small sweat beads form across the back of my neck. Edward turned me around so that my back was to his chest again like we were upstairs when we first got there. We started to move to the music, losing ourselves once again.

His right hand was on my stomach holding me to him, and his left was holding my hip. Entranced by our close bodies, my hands found their way up to the back of his neck. His was slick with sweat like mine.

He leaned his head down and kissed me behind my ear. I closed my eyes while our hips moved to the pulse of the music, grinding my ass into him. "Ungh," he grunted. I loved that sound. His tongue licked a trail from my shoulder to the place he had just kissed. Before I could enjoy the familiar warmth, he blew cool air onto the wet area. Goosebumps formed where his breath fanned across my skin.

All too soon the song ended. He released his grip on my hip, and we started to walk off the dance floor. We were met by Emmett who grabbed my arm and pulled me out again just as Pussycat Dolls "Buttons" started playing. Edward started after us, but Emmett wouldn't have any of it.

"I want one dance with her!" he bellowed. "Why would you deny me some fun when I agreed to do this without bringing a girl for myself?"

"Fine, dance with her!" Edward yelled over the music. He held up his forefinger. "One dance. I get her for the rest of the night, though."

The song seemed a little too sexy for a dance with a man I wasn't involved with. And, it seemed way too sexy considering this man was my boyfriend's brother, and the boyfriend I spoke of was only feet away watching every move.

"Go along with what I do," Emmett whispered into my ear, mischief gleaming in his eyes.

"Okaaaaay," I said, unsure of what this was going to entail.

Emmett grabbed me around the waist and straddled me over his thigh, so that I was pretty much sitting on him. I looked over at Edward as his jaw dropped to the floor. Emmett was chuckling at his reaction. I felt myself being pulled into Emmett's dance, bouncing and swaying and grinding. As soon as Emmett started unbuttoning his shirt, a huge laugh escaped from me. This was going to be hilarious. Deciding to play along, I brushed his hands aside. Taking a button in my fingers, I popped it through the hole and ground into him while singing the lyrics. We paused all motion and looked back over at Edward who was fuming. If it was possible, steam would be coming out of his ears. Still looking him directly in the eyes, I popped another one of Emmett's buttons, rubbed my chest up against him and gave my best "O" face.

"Would you look at that," Emmett laughed. "Think I'm pissing the Golden Boy off." It was hard not to laugh along with him. I turned around and pressed my ass into him, just as I had done with Edward. His hands found their way to my hips and moved me against him. I could easily tell that Emmett was being a good boy. Edward should have more faith in his big brother.

I kept my eyes on Edward the entire time while I gyrated and ran my hand over my exposed skin, through my hair, down my neck, between my breasts. Slinking down to the floor and back up, I made sure that every inch of my body rubbed against him. Edward was radiating anger and desire from his place by the bar. To fuel his desire, I put my finger in my mouth seductively and then trailed the wet tip down my neck. When I popped my ass out and Emmett smacked it, Edward launched himself toward us and snatched me from his hands.

"Hey!" he protested. "The song wasn't over!"

"Yes, it was," Edward growled at him, taking me in his arms and pulling me against him strongly. "Was that a challenge, love?"

The song morphed into Massive Attack's "Angel" seconds later, and the people around us subconsciously moved closer to each other, if that was even possible. The music was hypnotizing and sultry, and our bodies were so connected I could feel his heart thrumming through his shirt. It was erratic.

"You are so fucking sexy," he whispered in my ear. "And, you're obviously figuring out the control you have over me with that display. Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?" That made me gasp. What _did_ he want to do to me? I wanted to find out.

He splayed his fingers across my back while I straddled his thigh, bouncing slowly to the beat. My head lolled from side to side, the tip of my ponytail brushing along my exposed back.

_You are my angel  
Come from way above  
To bring me love_

The other dancers were gasping for air in the stifling heat, completely entranced. His eyes burned into mine and my fingers clutched onto him, needing him closer. "Edward," I whispered. The pool between my thighs was growing wetter with every grind of his erection into my hip and every pass of his thigh over my core.

_Her eyes  
She's on the dark side  
Neutralize  
Every man in sight_

The friction was overwhelming. My head fell forward against his shoulder as the drums and guitar picked up.

_To love you, love you, love you ... _

I was overcome with need. I wanted him. I needed him. "Edward," I whispered again. My voice was shaky. I was losing all strength. My hand trailed down his chest, feeling his tightening muscles.

His hand skimmed slowly down my side...brushing the side of my breast...my ass...my thigh...finding its way to the back of my knee. Pulling up, he hitched it over his hip. I could feel every inch of him against me now. "I want to touch you so badly, Bella," he panted. "Oh, my God, I'm using all of my strength not to." I clenched my eyes shut. Looking at him would cause me to explode. I let myself get lost in our movement instead. We were the only two on the dance floor.

_You are my angel  
Come from way above_

"I fucking need you now," Edward groaned into my ear. "I need to fuck you. Jesus, Bella, I need to see you come again."

"Yes," I breathed, lacing my fingers behind his neck and holding on. Our lips were mere millimeters apart. "Take me home. Please fuck me, Edward. I need you in me. I can't wait any longer. Now. I need you now. Right now. Right now." My voice was only coming out as air. His lips crashed to mine, and I eagerly took him in. It was so hot and passionate that my legs were quivering with every stroke of his tongue.

"Come for me, Bella," he groaned.

He dipped me back and pressed his lips to my chest, while still grinding into me. I swiveled my hips, needing to feel him, needing the friction, just...needing. The coil in my stomach was growing tighter and tighter, ready to snap. He thrust forward rhythmically, one more deep grind into my bundle of nerves causing that coil to do just what I wanted it to, sending me over the edge. My orgasm exploded through my body...eyes clenched, mouth hanging open, leg tightening around his hip, body shaking. "Edward," I gasped, trying to breathe without making any other noise.

_To love you, love you, love you... _

His strong arms pulled me back up so that he could support me. We were entwined. Arms and legs and torsos. His and mine. Ours. One. My eyes focused as they slowly opened. Over his shoulder, I watched as the crowd parted, couples breaking their trances, staring...staring at a blonde, a strawberry blonde, strolling toward us. Gorgeous. Perfect. Elegant. Those words could not describe her. Photos did her no justice. The way the strobes glinted off her moist skin made it look as if she was sparkling.

The words of the song repeated in my mind.

_Her eyes  
She's on the dark side  
Neutralize  
Every man in sight_

The attention of every man except Edward was on this blue-eyed beauty as her hips swayed and breasts bounced in time to the beat. Those blue eyes? They were focused on one thing and one thing only.

Me.

"Edward," I whispered.

"We're leaving right now," he said. "I can't wait any longer, either. Nothing is going to stop us tonight. This has taken long enough."

"Edward," I said again.

"What, baby?" he asked, pulling his head back to look at me.

The strawberry blonde stopped, mere inches behind Edward but didn't break eye contact with me.

"I think she was wanting to tell you that I was behind you," she said in her seductive voice. Edward's breath hitched in his throat and his eyes became wide as he stiffened in my arms. He turned around slowly keeping me behind him, as he spoke her name.

"Tanya."

"Edward," she purred. "May I cut in?"

I stopped breathing. The last woman Edward had sex with was asking him to dance. Inside I was screaming "NO!" in pure hatred but outside I stood stalk still, no emotion showing at all. I could hear the whispers growing louder as more people's attention were pulled to the three of us.

_Is that Edward Cullen and Tanya Paul? Is that the girl from the premiere? Is her name Bella? What's going on between them? I can't believe we chose this night to come here! The two hottest celebrities in one night!_

"I'm going to have to pass, Tanya," he ground out through his teeth. "We were just leaving."

"So soon?" she replied. "The night has just begun. I thought maybe..." and she ran her finger down his chest to try to entice him.

With no hesitation, he grabbed her wrist and flung it away. It did not phase her for one second; her smile did not falter. "You thought wrong," he growled.

She took a step forward so that her boobs were now touching his chest. "Oh, Edward, it seems that you remember that I like it rough. I always came harder when you held my wrists down." Her gaze flickered to me over his shoulder, and I felt the bile rise in my throat. Of course she would stick a reference to their sex lives in there to get a rise out of me. I shouldn't have expected less.

"Shut up!" he roared. I couldn't take this any more. Did she want me to leave them alone? Did she want me to feel inadequate?

"You win, Tanya," I muttered. Edward's shoulders slumped as soon as the words left my mouth. Maybe he had heard me. There was no way I was sticking around to listen to any more, though, so I dropped my hand from his back and turned to walk away. Emmett ran into me as I took the first step and stopped me before I could go any further.

"Bella, your cell phone's been ringing non-stop for the past five minutes. I answered it because it seemed urgent. Something bad has happened."

My heart dropped. Not again. Not another parent. I felt my head start shaking side to side uncontrollably. "No...No...No," I repeated. "Not my dad. Not my dad." I could feel myself hyperventilating. No matter how hard I tried to pull in oxygen, I couldn't.

"Yes, your dad," he said. I threw my hand over my mouth. I was going to be sick.

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Awww, nuts. I left you hanging again.  
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**So, Edward's not a cheating bastard after all. You can breathe a sigh of relief. But, they've got bigger problems, huh?  
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**Check my profile for the picture of her club dress.  
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The reviews last chapter were AWESOMESAUCE. Keep those coming in!

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**_Check my profile for when I'll be posting my next update._**


	12. Chapter 12 He Loves You

**SURPRISE! Early Post!**

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them?

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: angst, language, lemons.

**I want to thank a couple of reviewers: Babe Pryor and WhoKnew24.**

**Babe Pryor really analyzes everything that's written, and she inspires me to write even better so that she will continue asking questions and trying to connect the dots. You should check out what she wrote the past few chapters and see if she has thought about things that you haven't. Everything that's been mentioned or referenced in this story from songs to movies to dreams have been clues to the future, and she's figuring that out. Those items aren't just fillers...  
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**WhoKnew24, thanks for reviewing the entire chapter and picking your favorite parts. I love that I can trick you, make you upset and make you laugh with my words.  
**

**Disclaimer:** I'm not a doctor nor have I ever been hospitalized. I've only been in the hospital once since that magical day I was born (April 24, 1984 -- no gifts, please) and that was for an x-ray of a bone that ended up not being broken after all. So, here's my attempt at hospital talk. This should be fun. If you're a doctor/nurse, you can make fun of me. I can take it.**  
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**CHAPTER 12  
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**He Loves You**

"Bella, your cell phone's been ringing non-stop for the past five minutes. I answered it because it seemed urgent. Something bad has happened."

My heart dropped. Not again. Not another parent. I felt my head start shaking side to side uncontrollably. "No...No...No," I repeated. "Not my dad. Not my dad." I could feel myself hyperventilating. No matter how hard I tried to pull in oxygen, I couldn't.

"Yes, your dad," he said. I threw my hand over my mouth. I was going to be sick.

Edward grabbed my shoulders from behind and spun me so that I was pulled against his chest protectively. "What the hell happened, Emmett!" he yelled. "She's had enough tragedy! Tell her!"

"It was your dad on the phone." _What?_ "His friend Harry had a heart attack. They don't think he's going to make it."

"Harry had a heart attack?!" Was I hearing this right? My father was fine?

"Yeah, he said something about they were out fishing. He slumped over when he was reeling in a fish and fell out of the boat into the water. Your dad had to swim him to shore. They don't know if he'll make it. Your dad sounded really upset. He wants you to fly back. He's at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle."

My world was chaos. Challenges were coming at me left and right, and my strength reserves were quickly becoming depleted. Since my mom had died, I'd had to be strong for both me and my dad. I was 17 when it happened, but I took the role of the parent immediately to keep my dad fed and functioning despite my own pain.

When my grandma died the next year, I took another huge hit. The stress of taking care of my dad because his wife and mother had died within a year of each other was taking its own toll on me. Everyone I cared for was leaving me, so I took it upon myself to keep my dad happy and around. He was all I had left in this world besides Jake. And then Jake was gone...

Things were going in a positive direction for me now. My dad was happier and content, and I had Edward. It just wasn't possible for my life to stay good. James and Tanya were after Edward and I, and now Harry, one of my dad's best friends, had a heart attack. I didn't know how this would affect my dad if he died. No matter what, though, I had to take care of everything to make sure he didn't spiral back into a depression. I had to shut out the hurt.

"Edward, I've got to go home," I said, breaking myself out of my own thoughts.

When he didn't respond, I looked up at him. He was on the phone with someone. He thanked the person that he was talking to and hung up.

"I've got to go home," I repeated.

"I know, baby. Let's go back to the house to get your stuff. I'll book you a flight on the way." Without even acknowledging Tanya who was still standing there or the people that were still staring at us, Edward and Emmett held onto me and helped me upstairs to our lounge to get my clutch.

The eau d'exhaust smell of the city air and unfamiliar heavy evening warmth hit me like a tidal wave as we exited the doors past the line of people toward Emmett's SUV. Edward was still holding onto me when my stomach convulsed causing me to lunge my face into a planter just in time.

He held my ponytail and rubbed soothing circles on my back while my body expelled the alcohol and food from dinner. When I righted myself after what felt like hours of heaves, I couldn't stop the sobs. "I'm so sorry," I cried, wiping my mouth. My whole frame was shaking. It wasn't from being cold. It was from the fear of what was to come.

"Honey, don't apologize," Edward murmured. He hugged me to his chest while I continued to cry. We were walking again, but the only way I knew was the breeze blowing across my damp skin. I couldn't feel my feet. They were on autopilot. When we got to the SUV, Edward got into the back seat and pulled me in, laying me down so that my head was in his lap.

I heard him talking on the phone to an airline representative while Emmett drove. He'd reserved a seat for me that left in a little less than an hour and a half. We had to hurry. The SUV pulled through the gate and came to a screeching halt in the circle drive. Once inside, Emmett took off up to the bedroom as Edward helped me climb the stairs.

"I love you," he whispered, kissing my temple. "I'm sorry about everything that has happened. It wasn't supposed to end up this way."

Once in the bedroom, I helped with what little I could in packing my stuff before they pushed me away. Edward threw a pair of my jeans, a t-shirt and my flats at me so that I could change. Putting on the new clothes in the bathroom, I brushed my teeth to rid it of the awful bile taste. The guys refused to let me help finish packing, so I took the time to call my dad.

When Harry fell in the water, my dad swam him to shore, which was about two hundred feet away. When he got him up on the rocks, he performed CPR and was able to resuscitate him. Harry's truck was luckily right there, so dad pulled him into the cab and drove to the hospital in Forks. Doctors ended up losing him twice on the table before they could get him in stabilized but critical condition. In need of more specialized care, they decided to Life Flight him to the hospital in Seattle.

The doctors there needed to perform a quadruple bypass, but he was in such serious shape, they didn't know if his body could handle the stress. Word from the staff was that a heart specialist from Chicago was called in that would be landing in Seattle at about the same time I was to land. Harry needed to hang on for just a little longer.

Our phone conversation was interrupted by a doctor, so Charlie said his goodbyes. I sat there for a few minutes in shock at how quickly things had changed.

"Bella," I heard Edward say. "We're done. Are you ready?"

The airport was quieter at this time of night. It was still busy, but not as many people took the red eye flights. He led me up to the ticket counter while Emmett followed with my luggage.

"There's a ticket being held for Isabella Swan on Flight 7070 to Seattle," Edward said. The woman was stunned that Edward Cullen was standing in front of her, but professionally, she snapped herself out of it and started tapping away at her keyboard.

"Can I see two forms of ID?" she asked. I dug in my purse and handed her my drivers license and my passport. After entering in a few items, she spoke again. "Yes, we have it right here. First class, landing at 2:35 am at Seatac Airport in Seattle, Washington." Edward nodded, and she printed out my boarding pass.

After she checked in my luggage, Emmett said he was going to wait in the seats by the door for Edward to come back. He gave me a strong comforting hug and kissed my cheek.

"Good luck, Bells," he said. "I hope Harry is okay. I'll see you soon."

"Thanks, Emmett."

Edward took the carry-on from him, and grabbed my hand to lead me to my gate. When we got to the TSA agent that would check my ticket before going through security, he stopped and pulled me to the side.

"Bella," he whispered, cupping my face in his hands. "Do you know how much I love you?"

I nodded my head. "A lot."

"_I_ can't even comprehend how much I love you. It blows my mind. With that, your pain is my pain. This is _killing_ me. I wish I could go with you. I want to be there for you. But since I can't leave, I've done the next best thing I could."

I looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

He took a deep breath. "I called my dad. He's the best heart specialist in the United States. He on a flight right now headed to Seattle to perform Harry's surgery." My mouth dropped open.

"Why...how...what?" I was flabbergasted. "Edward..." I breathed.

"Because I love you, and I want to take care of you. And, because it what my dad does. A few years ago my parents lived in Seattle, and my dad was a surgeon at that hospital. He's still licensed in Washington. He is going to perform Harry's surgery and save his life." He'd answered all of my questions that I couldn't even get out. Throwing my arms around him, I cried into his chest.

"You are the most wonderful man I've ever met," I sobbed. "I'm the luckiest person in the world to have found you."

"No, I'm the luckiest," he whispered.

_No, I am._

"_Now boarding Flight 7070 to Seattle, Washington,"_ a voice sounded from the speakers. Sniffling into his shirt, I knew it was time to go. Our time was up. Pulling back with my hands still on his chest, I looked up into his eyes. They were watery with unshed tears.

"I love you, Isabella Swan."

"I love you, Edward Cullen."

"Just Edward," he said.

"Just Bella," I replied.

After I kissed his chest allowing my lips to linger so that I could breathe his scent one last time, I started to pull away. But, he stopped me. "Bella...I'm coming back for you."

I paused to take in the intensity of his declaration and his stare. "I know you are. I'll be waiting," I told him, and then I turned with my bag and went through security, disappearing around a corner from the man that I loved.

The flight attendant woke me up an hour and a half later as we were preparing for our descent. I was able to catch a taxi to the hospital. Entering the familiar emergency room doors, I saw everyone in the waiting room. Charlie and Billy were awake comforting Sue who was crying. Leah and Jake were fast asleep on the sofas.

"Daddy," I sighed, dropping all of my luggage and running to him. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here." He met me half way and wrapped me in his arms. "Did something happen? Why is Sue crying?"

"She just woke up. Had a dream that Harry died. You can imagine she's a little shaken up. It's hard on her."

"How are you doing?" I asked. I couldn't help but be concerned for him. He had saved one of his friend's lives today. That had to be difficult to swallow.

"I'm...I'm doing okay. I just hate being back here."

"Me, too, dad. Me, too." Just then I heard the doors behind us slide open and a man walked in carrying a piece of luggage. He walked straight up to the nurse's station. If I didn't know any better, I would have guessed he was in his late thirties. This man was tall, blonde, as handsome as they came and had the same emerald green eyes of the man that I loved. But, I did know better. This was Edward's father.

"I'm Dr. Carlisle Cullen," he told the nurse. "I'd like to speak with the attending physician for a Mr. Harry Clearwater."

"Yes, Dr. Cullen," the nurse said. "Dr. Gerandy has been waiting for you." She led him through a door, and he was gone.

"Cullen?" my dad asked. "I wonder if there is any relation."

"That's his dad." Charlie's head turned to me in surprise. "When Edward found out about Harry, he called his dad in Chicago and asked if he would perform the surgery. Edward said he's the best heart specialist in the country."

"Wow," was all my dad could say. "I'll go tell Sue that he's here. We were told a heart surgeon was flying in, but we had no idea. I'm sure that will help calm her."

After pulling my luggage into the waiting room, I decided to find out if the cafeteria was open. Because I'd thrown up everything I'd eaten, I was a little hungry. When I found the cafeteria, a sign on the door said it was only open to hospital personnel at this time. It would open to the public at 5:00 a.m. I looked at my cell phone and saw that it was already 4:00.

Putting my back against the wall, I slunk to the floor in exhaustion. Sometime in that hour I fell back to sleep but was awoken abruptly when one of the doors flung open and slammed into my body that was curled into a fetal position on the floor. Looking up while rubbing my knee, I saw Jake's retreating form. What an asshole. He knew I was down there. I crawled up off the floor and trudged into the room, making a beeline for the coffee. Getting myself and dad a cup, I headed back to the waiting room with twenty slices of toast in hand for everybody.

"Where have you been?" dad asked, reaching for the warm styrofoam cup and the plate of toast.

"I fell asleep waiting for the cafeteria to open up. Heard anything?"

"Someone came out and said that Harry is in surgery now. Won't hear anything until he's done." Sue was sleeping on the couch again, but everyone else was awake. Leah looked drained. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot from crying, and her clothes were wrinkly from sleeping on the couch all night. After two pieces of toast, I stood and took her hand.

"Let's go," I said, taking my carry-on and her with me to the bathroom. Once in the door, I had her change out of her clothes into some of the clean ones I had. I pulled her hair back from her face, putting it in a ponytail and then cleaned up her face with some water and lotion. Though still incredibly upset over her dad, I could tell that she felt a little better now that she was fresher.

"Thanks," she whispered, patting the skin under her eyes in the mirror.

"He's going to pull through," I said, rubbing her back. That phrase was something that people waiting to hear news on a loved one heard all of the time. But, I said this to her knowing it was truth. Edward had told me that his dad was going to save Harry's life. I _did_ trust Edward, so I believed him. "That doctor is the best there is for what your dad needs fixed. He will be fine."

Rummaging through my luggage for a plastic bag I knew was in there that she could put her dirty clothes in, I pulled out a large white t-shirt. It was the EAC shirt. I smiled as I brought it up to my nose and smelled it. It smelled like him. He'd packed it away for me to keep.

We found ourselves back in the waiting room a few minutes later. Jake took up most of the free couch, so I just laid on the floor, ready for sleep again. A hand shook me, waking me up from an awfully painful rest. Glancing at the clock, it was already afternoon and my stomach was growling.

Sitting up to see what was going on, I saw Dr. Cullen walking down the hall toward us. Sue was standing, twisting her fingers together in front of her, waiting to hear what he was going to say. When he walked up to her, my dad and Billy stood to hold onto her.

"How is he?" she asked, fighting back the tears.

"Harry is going to be fine," Dr. Cullen smiled. Sue collapsed onto the couch, weeping tears of joy, and Leah joined her. "Surgery went better than any of us expected. I expect him to make a full recovery. We've wheeled him to a recovery room. I'd say in about an hour you can go see him."

"What about his brain function?" my dad asked. "The other doctor mentioned that he may have been without oxygen too long."

"Dr. Gerandy ran a series of tests on his brain, and everything seems to be working properly. I really truly believe he will be back to 100% in about nine months to a year. He was an excellent patient."

His eyes traveled around the room looking at everybody smiling and crying and hugging. Jake hugged Leah. Dad and Billy hugged Sue. Once his eyes fell on me, standing there awkwardly with nobody to hug, they stopped.

"Bella?" he questioned.

"Yes?" I answered.

"Would you accompany me to the cafeteria? I hear we both have had a long night of traveling. I would like to buy you lunch."

"Ummm...sure," I muttered. Jake was glancing back and forth between the two of us. He was confused. So was I.

I took a step around him and Leah and made my way out of the small room.

"I hear you and my son Edward are sort of an item?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at me.

"You could say that, Dr. Cullen," I said. For some reason, I wasn't sure if he really liked the idea of me and Edward being together. Did he believe that I was after something else?

He put his hand in the air. "Please call me Carlisle." He paused a moment before continuing. "I was a little surprised when Edward called me last night. He was asking for my help, but he was asking because the woman that he loved needed someone and he felt powerless ."

I took in a sharp breath realizing that Edward had told his father that he loved me.

"Now, did you know that Edward loves you?"

"Yes, I did, Dr. Cu-...ummm...Carlisle. I love him, too. Very much."

A smile broke across his face as we approached the counter. "Do you know how hard it was to keep my wife Esme in Chicago last night after she found out that he was in love?" A small laugh escaped me. "If I know her at all, I bet she's in LA right now showering him in kisses and asking a thousand questions about you."

"You're kidding," I laughed.

"No, not at all," he smirked. The woman behind the counter asked what we would like to eat. Carlisle ordered a salad, and I ordered the mushroom ravioli. He looked at me after paying. "Always wondered what it would be like to be a vegetarian. Been trying it out for the past month. Don't think I like it that much."

As we were sitting down at a table with our meals, my cell phone rang that familiar tune.

_It started out as a feeling_

_Which grew into a hope_

I whipped it out of my pocket and answered.

"Hey, Bella," he whispered. "Have you heard anything? Did my dad make it?"

"Hi. Yes, we have heard. Harry pulled through just fine. Your dad is an amazing surgeon. By the way, why are you whispering?" I asked him.

"That's wonderful. I'm so relieved," he sighed. "To answer your question, I'm whispering because I'm in the bathroom trying to be quiet because my mom showed up unexpectedly this morning." I started laughing. Carlisle did know his wife. "Dad told her about you. Jesus, she won't leave me alone. I'm hiding out. Hey, why in the hell are you laughing about this? I do not find this funny."

"Your dad said that he wouldn't be surprised if she showed up in LA, and she did. He's sitting right here eating lunch with me. Do you want to talk to him?" I asked.

"Sure," he said, sounding surprised. I handed my cell over to Carlisle.

"Hi, son, sorry about your mother," he chuckled.

I tried to keep up with their conversation, but it was too difficult only hearing one side of it. When Carlisle said, "You didn't tell me how beautiful she was," my cheeks flushed crimson. Now there were three smooth-talking Cullen men. I would be constantly blushing, laughing and quivering from now on.

"Well, I'm going to give you back to Bella. I need to go check on the patient and then probably prepare to head home if his progress is good. The doctors here can take over his care...okay...love you, too, son. Give your mom a kiss from me and tell her I'll see her when she gets home. Bye." He handed the phone back to me.

"Hey," I smiled. There was a pause and then I heard a female voice.

"Shit..." he groaned. "Mom found me."

"_Bella?"_ I heard a muffled woman's voice say in the background. _"Is that you, dear?"_

"Ma! Come on! Leave me alone," he whined. I was laughing hysterically now. "Bella, I love you, but I'm going to have to let you go. If she gets you on the phone, she'll use up all of your minutes." The phone was rustling now like he was struggling with something. "Mom! Get off of me!"

"Okay," I giggled. "I love you, too. I'll talk to you as soon as she leaves."

"Sounds great. Bye, my love."

"_How cute!" _I heard her exclaim before the line cut out. Poor Edward.

Carlisle stood from the table still shaking his head and grabbed my tray. After throwing the trash away, we walked back to the waiting room.

"Thank you for everything -- for coming to Seattle, for Harry, for lunch," I told him, reaching up to give him a hug. For an instant, I thought I'd maybe crossed a line, but he hugged me back tightly. It crossed my mind that he was making up for me not having anyone to hug when he gave us the good news, but I discarded that thought.

"It's my job and my pleasure. My son loves you, therefore I consider you a part of the family. It was very nice meeting you. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again soon if Esme has any say in the matter."

"I would love to meet her," I told him. Carlisle had told me that he thought of me as family already. It was time to meet the mother of the house.

He focused his attention on the rest of the people in the waiting room who were listening to what we were saying. My dad and Billy looked surprised. Sue and Leah were smiling. And, Jake, well he had his eyes narrowed at Carlisle. He definitely heard, "My son loves you."

"Let me go check on Harry and see how his vitals are. I'll send a doctor out to get you if he's ready for visitors," he told them.

Sue jumped from the couch and gave him a huge hug. "Thank you so much for saving my husband's life, Dr. Cullen," she cried.

"It's no problem," he said as he patted her back. "I studied medicine to save lives. This is what I do, and I love every day of it. Give me probably about twenty minutes, and I'll have them send you in." She nodded and he turned to walk back down the hall.

When he was given the all clear for visitors, dad and I stayed for a few minutes but decided to leave Sue, Leah and Harry to themselves. Since my car was at the airport in Port Angeles, dad had to drop me off. He waited so that he could follow me home, knowing very well how exhausted I was. When I got home, I lumbered up the stairs, changed into the EAC shirt and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, relieved at how the crisis had ended.

* * *

One week later, a gorgeous Monday morning, I was standing in the bookstore rearranging a shelf when the door opened behind me. Spinning to greet the customer, I stopped, surprised to see the man in front of me.

"Emmett!" I screamed, launching myself toward him and jumping into his arms.

"Hey, Bells!" he laughed. "I think someone missed me! Are you sure you picked the right brother?"

I smacked his arm and laughed as he put me down. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm the director of the movie. I'm directing people and stuff. Things need done before we start filming, and a lot of the decisions need to be made by me. If you're asking why I'm here," he pointed to the ground, "I told Edward that I'd hang out with you whenever I got the chance. So, tada!"

"Edward didn't tell me that you were coming. What a little sneak."

"Nah, I told him not to. Wanted to surprise ya."

I stretched up and kissed him on the cheek. "It was a nice surprise. Thank you."

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. Placing it on the counter, I heard that he'd put it on speakerphone while it was ringing.

"Hey, Emmett." It was Edward.

"Eddie, my brother, this missus of yours keeps mackin' on me. I've only been here for a minute and so far she's jumped on top of me and kissed me. You better get here in a hurry or she might switch Cullen men."

"Emmett!" I scolded. "If I was to switch Cullen men, I would go with that stud of a father of yours. A doctor and gorgeous..." I tapped my finger on my lips. Both Edward and Emmett were stunned into silence until I smiled a huge cheesy grin and shook my head. "You two...so gullible."

"Touche," Emmett laughed, realizing I was joking. Sort of.

"Did you...are you...Bella?" Edward stuttered.

"Oh, good gravy, Edward. No, I am not going to leave you for your dad. He's a gorgeous man, yes, but you, my love, got his good looks. And, you're an actor. Much more my type. Those doctors can be way too intellectual sometimes with their talk of myocardial infarction and creatine phosphokinase."

He laughed. "I've heard those words my entire life. I could probably write a medical dictionary pertaining to the heart." I laughed at him. "So, what are you two going to do tonight? You have the rest of the day free, right, Emmett?"

"Sure do!" he yelled as I turned around to watch him push himself off the bookshelves and fly along the wall on top of my ladder.

"Emmett! What the hell are you doing?!" I shrieked, as he slammed into the other wall and laughed.

"This looked like fun, and dammit if I wasn't right! Woohoo!" he chuckled, pushing himself off that wall now.

"What's he doing?" Edward asked.

"You know my ladder at the store?"

"Mmmm...the ladder," he responded obviously remembering looking up my tutu.

"Yeah, well Emmett's riding it along the wall. How old is he? Five?"

"Four. Sometimes nine. It really depends on the day. Emmett, get off the ladder and answer my question. What are you guys doing tonight?"

Emmett made a cringe-worthy jump from the top, shaking the floorboards all the way over to me. "What _do_ you want to do tonight, Bella?" he asked while wiggling his eyebrows.

"No! I will not have sex with you!" I screamed, just like that old high school joke.

"Emmett..." Edward scorned.

"What? I did not say that!" he scoffed.

"Sure" he quipped.

I decided to jump in on this one. "I actually already have plans tonight with the girls," I said, looking at Emmett and shrugging my shoulders. "You can come with us if you want. We're going to the bar."

"Sounds like a plan," Emmett said, putting his arm around me.

"Are you celebrating life again?" Edward asked. "That's something to celebrate with Harry being released from the hospital. Or, is it something else this time?"

I grimaced. "Todayismybirthday," I mumbled too quickly for either of them to catch.

"What was that?"

Taking a deep breath, I stretched the words out. "Today is my birthday." I hated celebrating birthdays, but the girls refused to let me sit at home alone.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Edward asked quietly.

"Because I don't want the attention or gifts or anything of the sort. Please don't be mad at me." My bottom lip was now firmly being bitten by my teeth and my feet were rocking back and forth in discomfort.

"Isabella Marie Swan, I could never be mad at you. But, you've just made me feel like the worst boyfriend in the world."

"Edward Anthony Cullen, don't middle name me, and stop that right now. I didn't tell you for a reason. You got me that amazing necklace, which by the way Alice has tried to steal twice, and that was enough of a gift for ten lifetimes of birthdays. I don't want or need anything else. I have everything I've ever wanted."

"Emmett," he said, "Make sure she has a good time tonight. And, buy everybody's drinks for them. I'll pay you back."

"My God, you don't listen," I groaned while throwing my face in my hands.

"I listen, Bella, but I am just choosing to ignore. And don't, for even a second, think you are not getting a birthday present from me. It will obviously be belated, but you will be getting one."

I rolled my eyes and grumbled. "Fine."

"Now that that is settled, I'm going to have to get going. Jane's tapping her watch telling me I've got to leave for an interview. I love you, Bella. Don't you ever forget that. Have a good time tonight, and don't let Emmett lure you into any dark corners." Emmett's bottom lip jutted out.

I laughed. "That's mean! He would do no such thing! But, I love you, too. Don't you ever forget that. And, your love is all I need. Honestly. I don't want anything else."

"I know you don't, Bella, but I can't help myself."

"I know that, too," I replied, knowing full well that he had some control issues when it pertained to me. A little of him was rubbing off on me, quite literally.

"Emmett, watch the girls tonight. Don't let anything happen to them."

"Yes, sir," he saluted with a smirk. "You can trust that I will most definitely be watching the girls tonight." I smacked his arm again knowing full well what he meant.

"Happy birthday, love. Have a good time tonight."

Emmett turned to me after we hung up, raising an eyebrow. "Any one of these friends of yours single?"

"Why, yes, one of them is," I chuckled. "My friend Rosalie is really quite the bombshell. Tall, blonde, gorgeous. And, she's a real sweetheart. Really soft-spoken, too." He grinned. If Rosalie was attracted to Emmett at all, and I didn't see how she wouldn't be, this night was about to become interesting. A woman that didn't put up with any kind of shit from a man and a man that acted like a child most of the time. He wouldn't know what hit him. Tall, blonde and gorgeous? Yes. Sweetheart and soft-spoken? Hell no.

When I was finished dressing for the night out after work, I headed back into town to the bar. The girls were already there waiting for me. Alice's eyes widened when she saw that I was wearing the green tourmaline and diamond necklace with my outfit. Heads turned to look at _me_ this time instead of Rosalie, as I sauntered along the bar. I blushed, not thinking about how this would draw attention to me.

"Happy birthday, Bella!" they screamed when I danced up to the table.

Rosalie picked up a shot glass and handed it to me before I could sit down. "To our friend Bella on her 26th birthday! May she have many, many more..." she said as we all threw back the shots and puckered our lips. "Orgasms!" she finished, pounding the table and coughing.

"Did I hear something about orgasms?!" Emmett boomed behind me.

Before I turned around to welcome him, Rose's eyes lit up. _Yes._ I pulled him around and introduced him to everybody.

"Emmett, these are my friends Alice Whitlock, Angela Cheney and Doctor Rosalie Hale," pointing my finger at each one, and holding it on Rosalie. "Everyone, this is Emmett, Edward's older brother." Rosalie maneuvered her way out of the booth over the top of Angela and put her hand out for him to shake. He took that hand of hers and kissed it before pulling her out to the dance floor without another word.

"Holy shit!" I laughed watching them mold themselves to each other. That worked faster than I thought it would. A match made in hell, that one. I plopped my butt into the seat next to Alice, and she put her hand on my back.

"You look absolutely beautiful tonight, Bella," she said, as she stroked my neck. "Have I told you that lately? I don't tell you enough how pretty you really are."

"If you try to unclasp my necklace again, Alice, I will eat your hand," I told her, snapping my teeth back toward her wrist. She huffed and crossed her arms over he chest, pouting just like Brandon did. He learned from the best.

My birthday party was really fun, filled with laughing, drinking and dancing. Jasper and Ben even showed to help celebrate. Toward the end of the night, Emmett and Rosalie left together, not saying goodbye to anyone. So much for Emmett's promise of watching us. He was watching girls alright, but their names were "Bought" and "Paid For." I stopped drinking long before the night was over because I knew I'd have to drive myself. With kisses on the cheek, we all departed our separate ways.

Walking into my quiet, lonely house after getting home, I huffed. It had been a rough week being away from Edward. Each night I awoke having another nightmare. Sometimes it would just be flashes of images like I'd had before, none of it making sense. Most nights I was in the meadow south of my home, though. I dreaded going to sleep. If I didn't wake up screaming, I woke up crying. Edward had been asking me every day how I'd been doing, but I always lied. I didn't want to worry him or make him feel guilty about it. I was just needing to make it until Sunday when he'd be back.

I fell asleep again tonight clutching onto the pillow next to me, pleading with whoever was listening for a dreamless sleep. It never worked. I was in the meadow again and Edward stood in front of me with his eyes widened in fear.

"Edward? What's wrong?" I asked him in an echoing distant voice that didn't sound like my own. He didn't speak, just stared. It was then that I felt it. The cool metal tip of a gun being pressed into my temple.

"Say goodbye," hissed the man behind me. It was James. It was always James. But, this time I heard something else. A sadistic laughing to my left hidden in the trees that circled the wide open meadow of wildflowers. Knowing that I had no more time, I didn't try to find out the identity of the other person. I looked Edward in his emerald green eyes ready to meet my fate. This action was so familiar though so very different than the last time I had experienced it. The roles were reversed. This time, Edward would be the one to...

"Live," I whispered to him. He had to go on without me. If there was anyone who would know how difficult that task would be, it was me. But it could be done. Then, I heard the pulling of the trigger. I was woken up screaming this time when my stomach turned. Running to the bathroom, I vomited, tears pouring out of my eyes into the toilet along with it. My abdomen was wrenching in pain as I heaved over and over again while I wailed. The roaring in my ears was deafening as they felt like they were being sucked into my head.

"When is this going to stop?!" I shrieked into the porcelain bowl while my fingers painfully gripped the rim for support. Falling back onto the floor, I cried until my body wore itself out, and even then, I just laid on the cool tile unmoving until I heard my alarm going off hours later.

Wednesday morning, I was in the store placing new books on the shelves when the UPS man came in.

"I've got another box here for you, Bella," he said.

After signing for it, I took it from his hands and placed it on the counter. I pulled the flaps back after I cut the tape with my box cutters. Inside was a metal case that was floating in a sea of packing peanuts with a card taped to the top with my name on it. Sliding my letter opener through the envelope, I opened it and pulled the card out. It was a hand-written note on ivory stationary.

_My beautiful Bella,_

_For the girl who says she has everything she's ever wanted._

_I told you that I listened. Don't forget...I'll love you forever._

_See you in a few short days. Happy Birthday._

_Love,_

_Edward_

I scrunched my brows together in confusion. "What does he mean by that?" I muttered. The two metal clasps clanged when I popped them open with my fingers. Lifting the case's lid carefully, I gasped and threw my hand over my mouth.

Nestled into a cutout in the black protective foam was a book. I ran my fingers over the cover and down the spine delicately once I'd lifted it from its encasement. "No way..." I breathed, shaking my head. "This couldn't be."

Opening the cover, I scanned the first few pages. _The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. First Edition. _Overwhelmed by what he'd done, I put the book back in the case and took a step back to take a breath. That book was so rare that I'd never found anyone that was selling it in this excellent of condition. My phone rang in my pocket making me jump.

"Hello?" I croaked.

"Hello, gorgeous."

"How? Where? How did you find it?" I stuttered.

"Good, you got the book," he stated. I could tell he was beaming. "Seems that you and my father hold a similar interest in collecting old books, so I called him to ask for the name of an antique bookseller. Through our conversation, I found out that my father holds an interest in Chicago history being that he was born and raised there. When I told him what book I was after, he laughed because he just happened to own exactly what I needed."

"This is absolutely amazing."

"_You_ are absolutely amazing, and my parents want to extend their birthday wishes to you, too. Dad hopes you enjoy it. It's from all of us."

"Thank you," I cried. "Thank you so much. I...I can't believe you did this for me. Edward, you are...you are..."

"You are, too, Bella," he sighed, understanding what I wanted to say. "I wish I could have been there to give it to you, but I didn't want to wait until Sunday night. It would have been a little unbirthday-like."

"Thank you. I've never had such a wonderful birthday present."

"You're welcome, love," he said. "Hey, can you do me a favor?"

"Anything!" I blurted into the phone, willing to do every damn thing he ever wanted now that he'd given me this book.

"Can you have Emmett give me a call when you see him? I've been trying since the night of your birthday. He won't answer his phone."

I stood up a little straighter. "I haven't seen him _since_ the night of my birthday And, on top of that, we've been trying to get ahold of Rosalie since that night, too. She won't answer her phone. The hospital said she took the week off."

"Hmmm..." he said. "Didn't you say that they left together from the bar? Hopefully nothing happened. That kind of worries me. Your dad hasn't said anything about a car accident has he?"

I swallowed hard. "He hasn't said anything, no," I said quietly. Alice walked in my front door then with a worried expression on her face. My heart sank.

Putting the phone on speakerphone, I asked her what was wrong.

"Edward, is that you?" she asked.

"Yeah, Alice. What's wrong?"

"Have you happened to see the gossip magazines lately?"

"No," he said warily. "I try to avoid them if I can. Why?"

She threw seven magazines down on the counter in front of me and my eyes widened in shock. There I was going into work, leaving work, eating lunch with Alice, going to the store, and at the bar for my birthday. There were only two shots that weren't here in town. One was after the premiere and the other was a grainy shot of the confrontation with Tanya at The Lair.

Headlines read:

_Edward's Newest Girl_

_Getting Married!_

_Edward Cheats on Bella!_

_It's Over! Bella Caught Cheating With Edward's Brother!_

_Yes! We're Pregnant_

_Bella's Ultimatum: Quit Acting or Good Bye_

_Cat Fight: Tanya vs. Bella_

"Edward, the paparazzi have found me," I whispered. I heard his sharp intake of breath. "I'm on every cover doing things here in town. I haven't seen anybody around. They must be hiding. Wow, that's a little unnerving that I didn't even know." My mind immediately flooded with visions of James stalking me in dark shadows.

"There are none of your house, are there?" he asked quickly. Alice shook her head.

"No," I told him.

"Maybe that means they haven't followed you out there. Good God, it's only a matter of time, though. I wish I could come up there now."

"It's okay. Whoever it is obviously doesn't want to put too much effort into it. They're only getting shots of me around town." This was a ploy to get Edward to calm down. The last time he freaked out he drank entirely too much alcohol.

"Where the hell is Emmett when you need him? What if it's-" he trailed off. _I'm wondering the same thing, baby._ Already knowing what he did when he was stressed, I could picture him running his fingers through his hair roughly.

"Emmett's missing, too?" Alice asked.

"Yeah," I said. "And, I'm more worried about that than the photos." I flung the magazines to the floor and went to the door to look out. Putting my hands on my hips, I stared in the direction that it looked like the photos were taken. It was the back corner of the parking lot. Whoever it was was probably sitting in their car or hiding in the trees and using a zoom lens.

My paranoia level was growing exponentially as were the vividness of my nightmares as the days went on. I had become extremely vigilant, paying attention to everyone around me wherever I went. Nobody ever stood out to me as a photographer, and I never saw that telltale blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, but new photos still showed up.

I had my back to the door Friday afternoon when I heard it open. Now that I was jumpy, I turned around quickly to see who it was. And, there she was.

"Rosalie!" I screamed in surprise, running up to her and wrapping her in my arms. "Where the fuck have you been?! We've been calling you all week. Why didn't you answer your phone? Are you okay?"

She lifted her right hand and clamped my lips shut so that I could only ask muffled questions. "Slow down. I'm fine. Wonderful, actually. I'm sorry you haven't been able to get in touch with me. I didn't have phone service." She was blushing. Rosalie Hale didn't fucking blush. "I have some news."

"What?" I mumbled through her fingers. She stuck her left hand up in the air and pointed at it with her other, blinding me with the gigantic rock on her ring finger. "You're engaged?!" I shrieked.

She grinned and just shook her head from left to right. _Holy fuck._

"You're married?!" I squealed in a pitch only dogs could hear. "Who?!"

"Emmett."

"Emmett?!" I screamed again. "You married Emmett?!"

"Yep, the day after your birthday. I'm sorry I didn't invite you, but we just went to a judge and had him do it. We've been on our honeymoon up near Vancouver for the past few days."

My jaw had become unhinged. Taking a page from my book, she used her hand to prop it back up. "Bella? Breathe." I took a deep breath through my nose and released it. What the hell was this world coming to? The match made in hell was now married. Happily married from the looks of it. She hadn't even killed him while they were on their honeymoon.

"Has he told Edward?" I asked.

"He's calling him right now," she smiled. We talked for a while about what happened after they left and when they decided to get married. She seemed genuinely happy, so I couldn't help but be happy for her. There was no way I could judge her for what she had done. Emmett was a great guy, and it's not like Edward and I didn't move fast. It was just shocking. This was Rosalie we were talking about.

When I asked her what their plans were pertaining to living situations, she said they'd talked about it but nothing had been decided since he was going to be in town anyways for the next few months. Before she could answer too many more questions, Emmett called her and said he was waiting for her, so she left. Within a minute of her leaving, Edward called.

"Bella, I have some news," he laughed, still sounding surprised.

"Rosalie and Emmett got married!" I giggled. It was mind-boggling for the both of us, but we were going to be supportive. They were both so in love that we couldn't criticize. We knew the feeling. One thing that we talked about, though, was throwing them a reception. I offered to have it at my house, and Edward thought it would be a great idea.

After my reading of a chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to the children on Sunday, I flew home in my car. Edward's plane landed later tonight in Port Angeles and would be getting to my house around eleven o'clock. The anticipation was killing me. It had been two weeks since we'd seen each other. This was the night we were finally going to be together. Neither of us had actually said to the other how much it bothered us that we kept getting interrupted, but it was obvious that we were anxious. His words at the club confirmed how much he wanted me.

I went from room to room readjusting everything on every shelf, table and counter to make sure it was perfect. It was all I could do to keep my mind off the raging storm outside that had hit as soon as the sun had set. Staring out the window, I became worried about Edward driving almost two hours in this kind of weather on that curvy road.

The wind blew hard, whipping through the trees outside. Rain pounded on the glass loudly. Lightning flashed across the sky, knocking out the power and making me cringe away from the window. I jumped when the thunder rolled through the air less than a second later. My arms instinctively wrapped my robe tighter around my body while I paced the floor. My eyes glanced at the clock on the wall. 10:23. 10:29. 10:31. 10:38.

_Ding-dong_

My eyes went to the door and then back to the clock. Still 10:38. Did he get an earlier flight? How the hell did he make it to my house this early, especially with the rain? Not caring how he managed it or what strings he had to pull, I ran to the door and flung it open with the biggest damn grin on my face and gleam in my eye.

"Edwa-"

Standing in front of me was a man, but it was not the man I had been waiting two weeks to see. Lightning flashed through the sky again illuminating the space around us. His eyes were dark and angry and his hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides.

"What are you doing here, Jake?" I seethed. Without speaking he stormed through the door, making me have to stumble back to avoid contact which also resulted in the door slamming into the wall. Using all of my strength, I grabbed for his arm as he went past and tried to pull him back toward the door to push him out. It was useless. He had a good 150 lbs and 12 inches on me. Still holding onto his wrist, though, he dragged me across the hardwood floor to the living room where my heels fell off my feet.

"Get down here you son of a bitch!" he yelled, looking up at the ceiling and then around the room.

"Who the hell are you yelling for?!" I screamed at him.

He turned around and got up right in my face. I saw his hand reach behind him out of the corner of my eye, and when he flipped it around him, I flinched thinking he was going to hit me. In his grasp was one of the magazines with me on the cover.

"Your fucking boyfriend," he hissed. "The one from the bar. I knew that I recognized him. I fucking knew it!" He threw the magazine over my shoulder where I heard it hit a frame on the wall and knock it off, shattering on the floor. "I heard you! I heard you on the phone with him!"

"When did you hear me on the phone with him?" I asked.

"At the bonfire! When you were on the beach! You told him you loved him. You called him Edward." The color drained from my face. He _had_ followed me. There was no other way he could have heard that. "Then you disappear for a few days and you show up at the hospital with a Dr. Carlisle _Cullen_ who says his son loves you! It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together, Bella. Edward? Cullen? It was only confirmed when I went to the goddamn grocery store and saw you smeared on all of the covers of magazines with him!"

"Why does it fucking matter?!" I screamed, shaking with pure rage. "You cheated on me! We've been over for months, and if you consider how long you were fucking Jessica, we've been over for almost two years!"

Lightning flashed through the sky again, showing me the hatred that was broiling in his eyes. "You're a fucking bitch. You just had to find another way to embarrass me."

_The fucking nerve. _"Oh, yes, Jake. Embarrass _you_. There's nothing embarrassing about all of Forks and La Push knowing that I wasn't good enough for you. There's nothing embarrassing about everyone knowing that Jessica Stanley fulfilled your needs better than me. And, there's _nothing_ embarrassing about making phone calls to all of the guests telling them the wedding was off due to infidelity. Get out of my goddamn house," I growled. "This conversation is over."

His eyes flickered down to my chest. Bringing his hands up, he grabbed the front of my black satin robe and flung it open, exposing the revealing corset that Angela had given me.

"Is this for him?" he spat. "You never wore these things for me. I take your virginity, and now you're a whore. Figures. Maybe if you'd have flaunted your tits around like this for me I wouldn't have gotten bored."

Not thinking at all with my brain about my safety, I pulled my hand back and swung it forward, smacking him squarely across the cheek with all of my strength. The pain circled from my palm all the way around my hand and up my arm. He didn't even flinch.

He squared his shoulders and leaned in toward my face, coming within an inch.

"I'm going to kill him," he hissed. The noise that came out of his chest was a deep rumble, not unlike the thunder outside. It frightened me. Nothing about his glare told me that he was lying.

_Over my dead body._

As he started to walk toward the front door, I forced my legs to follow after him. Bending down unsteadily and stumbling, I grabbed my heels and chucked them at his head as he made his way to his car.

"Fuck you!" I screamed. "Fuck you for everything you've ever done to me!" I started down the steps toward him. I wouldn't let him get away with this. I had never been this angry in my entire life. I, Bella Swan, wanted to kill Jacob Black.

He laughed, and I stopped dead in my tracks in pursuit of him. My body began to tremble. I knew that laugh. That was the laugh in my dreams; the menacing, sadistic laugh of the stranger to my left. I watched as he peeled out of the gravel driveway without another word while I stood on the bottom step motionless, blinking away the rain that was pouring down over me and washing away the tears that had trailed down my neck.

I hardened myself just like I always did and pushed the frightening thoughts circling in my mind to the place where I locked away things I didn't want to think about.

Nothing was going to ruin what Edward and I had been waiting for...not even this.

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**I decided not to drag out the two weeks. Who wanted to read about them moping for that long? Those fourteen days are over and done with. Now it's time for Edward to come back to Bella. I predict something EPIC will happen next chapter. Something you've all been waiting 13 chapters for...well, as long as something else doesn't interrupt them! Leave a review, and you'll get a teaser confirming or denying that. You know you want to know.  
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The reviews last chapter were AWESOMESAUCE. Keep those coming in!

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	13. Chapter 13 Not Tonight

**I UPDATED CHAPTER 12 EARLY - DON'T MISS IT! - THIS IS CHAPTER 13  
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**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: angst, language, LEMONS.

I'm going to go ahead and thank another reader: **budtrixjake** - She wrote this awesomeness at the beginning of her last review:

_First off I just want to tell you you write the best replies to your reviews. It really says a lot and shows how much you care about what people have to say and think of your writing. Two thumbs up to you as an author!_

My heart was all aflutter. I really do enjoy every single review I get, whether they're one or two or 500 words. It gives me a chance to interact with you all. Also, the more interactive you are with me, the more clues and/or teasers I give out and the funnier I am. There's no line I haven't crossed! :) A few of you know what I'm talking about. I'm happy I could make you laugh.

**Two new songs this chapter****! Check them out: ****http://www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

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When we left off, Jake had just left Bella's house after barging in and saying he was going to kill Edward.

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**CHAPTER 13**

**Not Tonight**

Now I understood what Bella meant by cold, torrential downpours. The windshield wipers on my rental were working overtime as they spread the water back and forth rapidly across the glass. What made it worse was that I was driving in the dark down a road I'd never driven on. Each curve seemed to come out of nowhere, so my attention was on the lines which were badly in need of repainting at all times. I hadn't even had a chance to call Bella to tell her I'd landed. My flight was right on time despite the storm, so at least she would know when to expect me.

I only knew one way to her house, and that was through Forks. Once I got into town, I would have to make my way back the direction I'd just come, except on a different road -- a narrower, darker, less-traveled road...without lines.

I'd never noticed how isolated her house was until I was driving to it by myself at this time of night. It was one of those roads that you wondered if you were the only person alive on the planet because you hadn't seen another car in so long. To prove me wrong, I was passed by a little car driving like a bat out of hell going in the opposite direction only a few minutes later.

"Damn," I muttered to myself watching the car in the rearview mirror. "Slow your ass down before you kill yourself." Idiots like that cause accidents.

When I focused back on the road in front of me, I saw the red truck on the side through the wall of rain. My heart started to race as I pulled my car into her driveway. It had been two weeks since we'd seen each other. Two weeks of lonely, agony-filled nights thinking about her in that big house all alone with nightmares waking her in the middle of the night without me there to comfort her.

She tried assuring me that she hadn't been having problems, but I knew. The small things told me that she was being haunted by James in her dreams. Her voice quieted slightly when I asked how she slept every day. She always stuttered while trying to tell me that everything was fine. Her breaths became shorter into the receiver like she was panicking.

Her house appeared in front of me, white and majestic in the dark and rainy night sky. I came to a stop, throwing it into park as fast as I could. This was it. _I'm home, baby. _Grabbing my small bag out of the passenger seat, I took a step out of the car into the icy rain ready to make a break for the front door to stay as dry as possible. Looking up as I stood, I saw her, though. Soaked and shivering. Barefoot. Quivering legs. Clenched jaw.

"Edward," she said in almost a cry through her gritted teeth.

"Bella?" Something looked terribly wrong. Why was she outside in this weather?

Not giving me a chance to ask, she launched herself off the bottom step and sprinted across the lawn. My legs willed me forward, drawn to her like a magnet. One step. The gravel crunched under my feet. Two steps. My foot padded onto grass. Three steps. My shoe sunk into wet soil. _Crash._ She threw her body into my awaiting arms, wrapping her legs around my waist, hugging herself to me. The strength of her impact knocked me back a step, making me stagger as I tried to keep us upright.

"Edward," she whispered with tears in her eyes.

"Bella," I whispered back. Our mouths collided, and I was lost in her just as I always had been before. There was no doubt in my mind. She _needed_ me. This woman _loved_ me. My heart soared from being connected to her again, but it ached that she was so overwrought with emotion from my absence.

My hands were roaming over her body, reintroducing themselves to each of her curves and the slope of her back and neck. Her body trembled in my arms. I pulled back and blinked away the rain in an effort to just look at her. I needed to just look at my love and my life. My Bella. She was wearing a short black satin robe. The front of it had been pulled open at the top, exposing the sexiest fucking corset I'd ever seen.

I took one of my hands and ran it from the hollow of her neck down to in between her heaving breasts and down over the black satin that covered her stomach. Her head fell back letting the rain rush down the valley. I took that moment to attach my lips to her skin to taste her once again. She moaned when my tongue swirled out along her goosebumps.

"Please, Edward. Please make love to me," she whimpered. She was absolutely gorgeous when she was just Bella, but seeing her when she was overcome by passion, needing me more than oxygen? It was crippling. I wanted to fall to the ground and bury myself inside of her right there. I wanted to feel her heat in this cold that had surrounded us and was sinking into our skin. I wanted to make her mine without any more delay under these clouds, in this rain and for all of the heavens to see.

But, she deserved more than that. She deserved to be made love to in a warm bed where there were no worries and no interferences.

"For you, anything," I breathed against her skin.

I started stumbling toward the front door to get to her bedroom so that we could finally make love to each other and express how deeply our love ran in our bones. Bella and I had needed this connection for so long and each time we had been denied. Each and every time something had happened. Not tonight.

When I crossed the threshold, she untied the robe and let it fall from her shoulders into a wet pile on the floor. Her tiny hands, hands that sent sparks coursing through my veins to my heart, slid around to my back and started to pull my shirt up.

She was struggling; her hands were shaking. Was it the cold of the rain? Was it her desire? To help her get to what she needed, I propped her back against the nearest wall and pulled the dripping shirt over my head and dropped it to the ground with the same wet splatter sound the robe made.

"I love you," she whispered between kisses on my neck and under my ear.

"I love you, too. I've miss you so much, Bella." She threaded her hands through my hair and brought her lips back to mine passionately. Our tongues danced languidly. Already about to bust through the zipper of my jeans, I thrust up into her core, making her groan and drop her head back to the wall. I stood there mesmerized by her breasts that were dangerously close to falling out of the top of the corset. Each gasp sent them closer to the edge. I had never been so turned on before in my entire life.

Her skin was dotted with droplets of water from the rain, making it shimmer with every flash of lightning. Using my tongue, I lapped at the trails that were streaming down her chest from her hair that hung down heavily around her shoulders. She circled her hips, pushing her heat into my hard cock, making me pause my ministrations to hold myself back from ripping her panties off and plunging into her hard and fast. She circled her hips again unbeknownst to my inner struggles, trying to make friction. My forehead fell to the wall next to her head, my will leaving me rapidly, my mind flooding with images of ravenous fucking against this very wall.

"Baby..." I groaned. "You've got to stop or I'll-."

"Upstairs," she interrupted. With no delay, I pushed off the wall with her tightly wound around my waist and started my way toward the stairs. I would do anything this woman ever asked of me. When my foot made it to the second step, I released the breath I had been holding. That was the first place we had gotten stopped when Marcus pounded on the door that first amazing morning we were together. Not tonight.

On my way up, I ran my hand down her back over the laces of the corset and to her ass while I kissed her with all of the love I had inside of me. The strings that hung loose were sandwiched under my hand, so I wrapped them around my palm and pulled, untying the bow. I tried loosening the laces, but she shook her head.

"No," she breathed. Taking her hands from my body, she started undoing hooks that ran down the front. With each step, she unhooked another. By the time I had made it to her bedroom, she only had one hook left. With one motion of her fingers, the corset fell to the floor, forgotten for the night.

I splayed my fingers across her now bare back. Her skin was ice cold, but my palms could feel her warm blood coursing underneath. Her skin would match her body temperature in no time.

I leaned forward so that her back was on the mattress, and I was holding myself up with my arms so that I did not crush her tiny body. She was still wrapped tightly around my waist unwilling to let go of me. My hands ghosted over her breasts and across her nipples which were hard. I felt her dig the heels of her feet into my ass and try to push my pants down, so I reached down between us and popped the buttons of my jeans to help her.

Her cold feet skimmed along my warm legs as the wet jeans dropped to the floor. I wrapped my arms around her back and lifted so that I could bring her body to the center of the bed, and her head dropped back with a throaty moan when she ground herself into my dick again which was only covered in boxer briefs now.

"Fuck, baby, you're so wet," I gasped, feeling her seep through both her panties and my underwear. Laying her down softly on the mattress again, I sat back on my heels and curled my fingers around the top of the thin black satin and pulled them down slowly, feeling her smooth legs all the way to the bottom of her feet. I released another breath, knowing we'd crossed another hurdle, getting further than when Emmett had decided to interrupt us. Not tonight.

I lifted her left leg and placed a kiss on her ankle. Then, I moved forward placing more soft kisses on her calf and the inside of her knee. When I made it to her thigh, I circled my tongue on her skin making her lift her hips in anticipation. As I got closer to her apex, I used my hands to spread her wider.

Running my flattened tongue along her wetness, she bucked her hips making me groan. God, I had missed this. I had damn near skipped the entire premiere just so that I could stay in that shower all evening long making love to her. Her whimpers and breathy moans while I went down on her that afternoon about sent me over the edge, and I had wanted to do this again for her since then. She deserved to feel loved and worshiped because I knew she had never felt that way, and it was only proven to me when she tried to reciprocate.

While circling my tongue around her clit, I inserted one finger and then another so that I could prepare her for what was coming. She had not had sex in at least six months, and I knew that she would be tight. I pumped them in and out of her slowly before inserting a third finger, stretching her as my tongue still slid around her bundle of nerves. As I worked unhurriedly, her breaths started getting shorter and her body started shaking.

I looked up at her face through my eyelashes and saw that her eyes were clenched. Her fingers, that had been wrapped in the sheet at her side moved then, finding their way into my hair. "Mmmmmmm," I hummed. The vibration from my mouth must have sent her body into overdrive because she arched her back and her muscles started tightening around my fingers as they moved in an out of her.

"I can feel you," I whispered. "You're so close, baby." I swept my tongue against her harder, and with one more curl of my fingers, she paused all grinding and screamed while tugging on my hair.

"Edward," she gasped. "Please, baby, I need you inside of me." She was trembling with need, shivering from the waves of pleasure. I pulled myself up and circled her hardened nipple with my tongue as I used my hands to pull my underwear down my legs and off of my feet. When I was completely naked, I hovered over her.

"Do we need protection?" I asked, knowing that I had a condom in my jeans ready for tonight.

"I'm on the pill," she replied. "And, I'm clean."

"Me, too, love. Are you ready?" I asked breathlessly, knowing that there was nothing holding us back any more. I watched as a tear escaped from her eye and trailed to her wet hair which was fanned across the covers. With a nod from her, I positioned myself at her entrance. Dropping my body down, I hooked my arms under her shoulders so I could wipe the tears off of her face.

While holding her face in my hands, I couldn't help but be blown away with the woman that was in my arms again. The feminine sweep of her jawline. Her soft lips, the top one slightly bigger than the bottom. The graceful arch of her long eyelashes that highlighted her warm, coffee-colored eyes. But, it was the thing behind those eyes that knocked my breath away. Her soul. Her loving, passionate, beautiful soul.

"You are so beautiful," I whispered. "You have no idea how beautiful you are, inside and out."

Lowering my lips to hers, I kissed her mouth deeply while I pushed into her, taking my time to feel her and let her feel me. She gasped and clutched onto my shoulders when I was all the way in.

"Are you okay?" I asked, pausing all movement because I knew that she would need a moment to acclimate to my size.

"Yes," she whimpered. "Keep going." I pulled out and pushed back into her a few times until she was starting to breathe heavily from pleasure not pain.

"I love you, my Bella," I whispered in her ear as I thrust into her, running my hands down her sides to her thigh. I wrapped my fingers behind her knee and lifted it so that it was hitched around my hip, just like when we were dancing at the club.

"I love you, too," she panted between breaths. She lifted her other leg and wrapped it around my waist, hooking her feet together behind me, letting me get deeper. "Oh, God," she moaned as her eyes rolled back into her head. Her back arched as I pulled myself up from her body and thrust into her harder. "Don't stop. Please don't stop," she begged.

"I can't," I gasped, mesmerized by her heaving chest that she was holding with her hands. She was meeting me thrust for thrust now, swiveling her hips in a way that was making me harder than I have ever been. With each penetration, I felt the ache for her leaving my body. I was back. We were together again, connected in a way we had never experienced with each other. And, with each penetration, I felt my orgasm building, overwhelming my senses.

I fell on top of her body and wrapped my arms around her while I moved in and out with what was becoming jerky, erratic motion. "Come with me, Bella," I groaned, dipping my head to her chest and taking her nipple in my mouth. In desperate need, she grabbed my ass and dug her fingers in pulling me against her harder. "Ungh," I grunted, not feeling the pain, only the intense sting of desire.

I could feel her walls tightening around me, waiting for their release. Switching my position, I plunged into her harder and deeper than ever, and she came, clenching around me, screaming my name and arching her back away from the bed. The sight of her mouth during her orgasm and the noises escaping her lips sent me over the edge. With one more thrust, I came inside her, chanting her name over and over again. My body, still reeling from the pleasure, continued to move in small increments until we both no longer felt the waves rolling through us.

Shaking and exhausted, I dropped my sweaty forehead against hers and kissed her with all of the strength that I had left. Being careful to not pull out of her, I rolled us so that she was now laying on my chest but still straddling me. I couldn't bear pulling out. We were one this way. Her head rested on my shoulder, and I turned mine so that our lips and noses were touching.

"I love you," she whispered against my mouth. "I love you so much, Edward. Thank you for coming back to me."

"I love you, Bella. More than you can imagine. I haven't stopped thinking about you since you left to catch your flight at the airport. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do...leave you hurting like that." She kissed me while a small tear fell from her eye. After laying there for probably close to an hour just being together and talking, I sat up with her in my lap and stood so that I could pull the covers down. Crawling back in, she nestled into my chest and we fell asleep almost instantly.

When I awoke the next morning, we were in the same position we were when we fell asleep. Her curled into my side, head resting on my chest, hand lightly laying on my stomach...me on my back, one arm curled around her, the other hand resting on top of hers on my stomach, head dipped to rest against the top of her head...four legs tangled into one knot. Unwilling to wake her but needing some clothes from my luggage in the car, I carefully removed myself from our intimate, comfortable union. I almost decided to stay when I heard her whimper and clutch onto the pillow that my head was previously on, but I ran the backs of my fingers along her cheekbone and kissed the top of her head before grabbing a blanket from the chair in the corner to wrap around my waist.

Making my way downstairs to the front door, I noticed that there was a dent in the drywall. Opening the door, I pulled it back and saw that it was the exact spot that the knob would hit. I didn't recall seeing that when I was here before. I shrugged my shoulders and decided to run to a hardware store sometime this week and get a drywall patch. Maybe she'd accidentally threw the door open and didn't know how to fix it. Glancing down to see if I should buy a baseboard door bumper, I saw one broken laying on the floor. I bent over and picked it up rolling it in my fingers noticing that it was a spring bumper that had snapped in two.

After setting it on the table in the foyer, I walked gingerly through her muddy yard and over the rocks in her driveway.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch," I complained with each step over the sharp gray rocks. Walking around to the trunk, I was stopped when my eyes saw a black heel on the ground. I bent down on my hands and knees immediately ignoring the pain to look under my car afraid of what I might find. Under one of the tires was the other shoe, the heel part the only thing sticking out. It came out easily when I yanked on it.

Not wanting to wake her, I just placed the luggage on the floor in the foyer when I got back inside and took out the clothes I would need for the day. After changing right there, I walked toward the kitchen to see if she had any orange juice. I saw something laying on the floor in front of me before I even got up to it. It was a magazine. Rounding the corner and bending over to pick it up, I saw which magazine it was and the shattered frame on the floor at the exact same moment. My eyes widened. The hole in the wall, the shoes, the magazine, the frame. These were not accidents. _Jesus Christ, something happened here last night._

"Edward?" I heard Bella say behind me in the tiniest voice I had ever heard come from her.

I slowly turned holding the magazine in my hands, and her stance told me everything I needed to know to confirm my suspicions. Her eyes were focused on the magazine in my hand, tears springing up in them. Her hands were shaking crossed in front of her, and her shoulders were slumped. I threw the magazine down as I ran the few feet to her.

"Bella, what happened? Tell me. Tell me right now." She clenched her eyes together, pushing out the tears and shook her head from side to side.

"Baby, something happened. I know it did. There's a hole in your wall. Your shoes were in the driveway. There's a magazine of us and a shattered frame on the floor. Who came here?"

"Jake," she croaked. "He came by last night right before you got here."_  
_

"What did he do to you?! Did he hurt you? Please, Bella, don't tell me he touched you...or...or..." My mind was racing at all of the puke-inducing possibilities. Scanning her face, it was clear of bruises, but the long robe she wore covered the rest of her skin.

"No, he didn't hurt me," she sniffled. "You can trust that I would have called the police if he had."

"Please tell me what happened, then," I begged, pulling her toward the sofa. When we sat down, she pulled her legs up and folded herself into my side.

"He put it all together, Edward. He _did_ follow me when I was on the beach." A red haze covered my eyes when she said that. I knew I should have trusted my instincts on him. "He heard me say that I loved you. He heard your name. Then, he must have stopped by the store and saw my sign saying I would be gone, and when your dad showed up at the hospital and said that his son loved me in front of everyone, he put it together. Your name, your dad's last name. The magazine just confirmed it for him."

"Is that everything that happened?" I asked, running my hand up and down her back.

"No. He told me that I was embarrassing him."

_"He what?"_ I asked incredulously. "How the hell could this be embarrassing for him after the shit he did to you?"

"That's what I said," she snorted, wiping a tear from her face. "I told him to get out after that...but...he wasn't finished."

I didn't like the way she said that. Sitting forward, I turned her so that she was facing me. I needed to see her face to make sure she was telling me everything. "What did he do?"

"He," she hiccuped. "He said that he was going to kill you." A sob ripped through her chest then. She flung herself forward and wrapped her arms around my neck while I tried to calm her. "It scared me so much. I wanted to hurt him, Edward. Kill _him_ instead. I picked up my shoes and started throwing them at him. I didn't know what to do."

"Bella," I whispered. "Honey? He's not going to hurt me. Is that what you're worried about?" I felt her nod. "He can't hurt me, and he can't hurt you. I won't allow it."

"He's huuuuuge," she groaned. I laughed, pulling her tighter.

"That he may be, but I can handle my own. I'm fast. I've never lost a fight because of it. Plus, I've got something to fight for...something he doesn't have." She pulled back and sat on her heels to look at me questioningly. I reached my hands out, and cupped her face, wiping her tears away with my thumbs. "You, Bella. I've got you to fight for."

Her eyes teared up again before she leaned in and kissed me. "I love you, Edward."

"I love you, too. I'm sorry I wasn't here in time last night. You shouldn't have had to go through that. But, please don't keep things like that from me. Despite what could have changed last night, I need to know these things."

Feeling infinitely better that she was okay and he had not laid a hand on her, we collapsed together on the couch and laid there until I heard my alarm going off on my phone. Sighing, I sat up on the couch with her. I had to meet Emmett at the hotel in an hour for the first day of prep. "What time are you going in to work?" I asked, kissing the tip of her nose.

"I open at 10:00," she said.

"Would you want to drive into town with me? I have to meet Emmett at 9:00."

She smiled for the first time this morning. "Of course."

I helped her stand and led her upstairs to the bathroom where we took a quick joint shower. Being with her in the shower again and not having enough time to do anything was beyond difficult. After the upsetting morning we'd both had, I wanted nothing more than to make love to her again. Instead, I showered her in kisses and featherlight touches while I soaped her hair and body. She needed to relax.

When we were dressed and ready for the day, we went into the garage to take her car into town. Taking the keys from her hand as she headed for the driver's side, she huffed.

"This is my car, Edward." Her eyes narrowed at me making me smirk.

"Too bad, Swan. I rarely get to drive, so don't deny me. Plus, I liked how smooth it was when I drove it last. I'm thinking about getting one for myself." She rolled her eyes and reluctantly got in the passenger seat.

"Wouldn't that be perfect," she snorted. "His and hers Volvos with matching vanity license plates to boot. Then all we would need would be our kid's soccer team to cart around."

"That _would_ be perfect," I said. I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw her blushing. She wanted it all, too. There was no hiding it.

"So, do you want to come up to the room where we're meeting before you head off to work?" I asked as I pulled onto the main road out of her driveway while grabbing her hand to rest on the center console.

"Oh, no no no. I don't want to intrude," she said shaking her head.

I laughed. "You won't be intruding. Honestly. This is very informal. It'll probably be a simple meet and greet while you're there anyways. You can say hi to Emmett. You haven't seen him since your birthday, right? You can give him your congrats."

"Speaking of not seeing someone," she said, still not giving me an answer to my question. "Where's Marcus?"

That made me grumble. "He's still on the payroll, as much as it bothers me. I gave him another week off."

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry that I've caused problems between you two. I honestly don't know what I did-"

"Stop right there," I interrupted. Of course she would start to blame herself. She did the same thing with Jake. "You did nothing wrong. Marcus is...well...I don't know what his problem is, but I can assure you that whatever it is has nothing to do with you ultimately. I'm trying to figure it out. That's one of the reasons why I haven't fired him, yet. I'm an inquisitive person, and it will bother me for a very long time if I get no answers."

"So, he's coming in this weekend?"

"Yeah, I'm flying him out Saturday." I had to take a breath to calm myself as the questions starting boiling up. "This is what I don't get. I've been nothing but nice to the man for the entire time he's worked for me. I pay him very well. I always put him in first class whether I'm on the same flight or not and I give him generous amounts of time off with pay. He's always been grateful until now."

"Hey," she said, squeezing my hand. "Don't get too worked up over this. There's always a solution. Okay?"

"I know," I replied, winding my fingers with hers and pulling them up to my lips. I missed her hands and the way they felt in mine. To feel her close to me again was like coming home. Before I knew it, I was turning into the parking lot of the hotel not even bothering to ask if she wanted to come up with me. She was doing it no matter how much she objected.

Getting out of the SUV, I ran around to the other side and helped her out.

"I guess you made my mind up for me," she laughed. When we got up to the top floor suite that we had scheduled for the meeting, I only had to knock once on the door. Emmett opened it wide, smiled a big toothy grin and then swept Bella up in a huge hug.

"Hi, Emmett!" she giggled as she squirmed in his arms. The sound of her laughter was calming. Her carefree outlook helped bring me out of my brooding. When he put her down, I reached my hand out to shake his, only for him to pick me up the same way. Once. Again. I heard someone else laugh from inside the room.

"Emmett, put him down!" the gorgeous blonde play-scolded.

Standing up from the couch and walking over to me, I took her hand and kissed it.

"It's good to see you again...sister-in-law," I smirked.

She smiled and then turned to Bella and gave her a hug before they walked off chatting.

"So, did you find out anything?" I whispered to Emmett, closing the distance between us so that Bella couldn't hear our conversation.

"It's not him," he answered, glancing over his shoulder to see Bella and Rosalie talking animatedly by the window. "Some dark-headed kid. Rose and I stationed her car in the parking lot yesterday morning and waited. The little shit hid in a patch of trees. When I got out to confront him, he bolted."

Once I'd finally heard from Emmett after he called to tell me that he'd gotten married, I'd asked if he would do some surveillance outside her bookstore. The photos of her in the magazines were unsettling to say the least. Whoever this photographer was, they weren't making themselves known. I'd been worried it was James from the moment she said that she hadn't seen anybody taking photos of her. My suspicions changed yesterday, though, when I arrived at the airport to find James a member of the paparazzi that hovered around me while I made my way to my terminal.

"I figured not," I said quietly. "He was at the airport yesterday. Didn't think he'd go to Forks and then fly back to harass me."

"Did he say something to you?" he asked concernedly; his eyebrows knitting together and his stance becoming rigid.

"Of course," I huffed. We walked over to the table where I grabbed a bottle of water. "Fucker started asking about Tanya again. I wish he'd move on. I get it. It's not like I don't feel like a complete ass for what I did."

"Do you think he'll come here?" he asked, taking his own bottle of water and taking a large gulp.

There was no doubt in my mind. He had to have information on Bella considering it was in magazines now. And, everyone that knew anything about me knew that I was starting filming here soon. It was the perfect situation for him. I simply nodded.

"I've got another problem," I told him. He rolled his eyes.

"Only you," he grumbled.

"Seems like Bella has a jealous ex that's out for blood."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Let's just say that he came to Bella's house last night before I got there and threatened to kill me. She was really shaken up."

"He didn't hurt her, did he?" he asked. I was happy that his main concern was Bella. I should be the last person he should be worried about in this situation.

Just as I opened my mouth to answer him, Bella and Rosalie turned to walk toward us. I shook my head 'no' at Emmett, and he nodded back in understanding.

"Hey," Bella said looking at me, taking Rosalie's hand. "After much bribing, this woman here agreed to let us throw her and Emmett a reception at the house."

Emmett and I laughed. "What did you bribe her with?" I asked.

"Lingerie and champagne. Works every time." She had a huge grin on her face. "So, when do you boys have off? We can't very well go planning something without knowing the production schedule."

Emmett walked over to a large table and pulled out some paperwork. Walking back over he and I went over the calendar and told them we'd be available in three weeks.

"Perfect!" Bella exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "That gives Alice, Angela and I enough time make invitations, plan and create." She tapped her finger on her chin. As she was thinking, obviously making a list of things that she needed to do in her head, someone knocked on the door. Emmett turned around and opened it. After taking another sip of my water, I handed the bottle to Bella to see if she wanted some. She took it with a small smile and placed it to her lips.

"Hi, Edward," I heard a woman behind me say in my ear. Her hand on my upper arm was foreign and not at all desirable. And, to be completely honest, that was a new development. If a woman touched me like that before, I'd have fucked her in the bathroom before the end of the day. Luckily, this woman was married, and I was happily blissful with Bella.

Turning my head, I smiled at the statuesque fiery redhead that stood behind me. "Victoria." She reached around and gave me a friendly hug. We'd met several times back in LA for auditions and meetings. There was a nice chemistry between us, but it all ended when the cameras stopped rolling. Holding my hand out, I took Bella's and pulled her over.

"Bella, this is Victoria Embry. Victoria, this is my Bella." The women extended hands and shook very lightly.

"You're gorgeous," Victoria said, smiling at the beautiful woman at my side.

Bella sputtered. "I should be saying that to you. But, thank you." She looked incredibly taken aback.

After another fifteen minutes of talking, Bella had to leave. I gave her the keys to her car because I wouldn't be needing it for the rest of the day. Emmett agreed to give me a ride to her house later that night when we were finished.

As she turned to walk out in the hallway, I followed. Hugging her goodbye, I said, "It's not James, baby."

She stiffened in my arms. "Taking photos of me?" she asked.

I nodded. "It's not him." She breathed a sigh of relief, and I felt myself relax as well.

With a kiss goodbye, Bella left at the same time Rosalie did, and we set to work.

At seven in the evening, I closed my copy of the script and stretched back in my chair. Since our ladies had left to go to work we'd been reading lines and rehearsing in between costume fittings. Being cooped up in this hotel room with more than a dozen people had made me claustrophobic.

"Let's get out of here," Emmett said, making a notation on his storyboards. "We're done for today."

After thanking Emmett for the ride, I got out of his car and walked up to the front door. Turning the knob, I opened the door quietly. Immediately the delicious scents of tomatoes, basil and cheese assaulted my nose and the soothing sound of Miles Davis delighted my ears. I took my shoes off in the foyer and padded quietly across the floor toward the kitchen.

There she was, my beautiful Bella, bent over at the waist with her head practically in the damn oven, ass displayed in front of me swaying to "Blue in Green." I leaned against the wall as I watched her and the sensual way her body moved. Her feet were clad in heels that made her smooth, shapely legs go on for miles. When she stood, the red wrap dress she wore accentuated her curves in all of the right places...her hips, her waist, her breasts. Not that there was a bad place on her.

She took a step to the left, the hem of the dress skimming the area just above her knees the way I wanted my fingers to, where she poured herself a glass of wine. Tipping her head back slightly to take a sip of the red liquid, her sexy tousled hair fell from her shoulders down her back bouncing to the music before coming to a rest. Her neck...oh, her neck...was begging me to kiss it.

Stepping away from the wall, I walked into the kitchen and wrapped my arm around her waist, pulling her against my chest while my other hand moved her hair over to one shoulder. She jumped a tiny bit when I surprised her but calmed instantly to my touch.

"I love you," I whispered while I brushed my lips along the column of her neck as I swayed with her. "You are the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen. I missed you today." I bathed in the scent of her hair, her skin, her perfume. Her.

I felt her body relax and lean into mine while we moved to Miles. "What are you cooking?" I asked.

She sighed and turned her head so that her forehead was resting on my neck. "Lasagna."

I chuckled lightly at how relaxed she seemed. "How much wine have you had?"

"Just two glasses. Haven't eaten since noon, though."

"Is it almost ready?" She needed to get some food in her. It had been almost eight hours since she'd eaten.

"It's done. I was just waiting on you to come home." _Home._ How could it feel like home in just the short amount of time we'd been together? But damn, if I didn't catch myself calling it that in my head a couple hundred times. Bella was the answer. She felt like home.

After a kiss on her temple, I reached around and grabbed the oven mitts. She opened the oven for me and I pulled out the bubbly lasagna and placed it on the trivet.

"Jesus, that looks delicious," I groaned as I dipped my head and smelled the steaming layers of noodles, tomato sauce, meat and cheese. "Have I told you how much I love you?"

"Yes," she giggled. "A couple of times."

She pulled down some plates and scooped a large square for me onto one plate and a smaller square for her. I took them in my hands while she grabbed two individual bowls of salad out of the refrigerator. Walking into the dining room, I saw that she'd set an intimate candlelit table for two already with a chilled bottles of wine and champagne.

"I feel a little under dressed," I said as I poured us each a glass of the merlot. I was still only wearing my jeans and a button-up shirt.

"No, please don't feel that way," she said. "You worked hard all day. I want you to feel comfortable."

When we were finished, she got up and took our plates into the kitchen, returning with a single plate in her hand topped with a large wedge of cheesecake drizzled with strawberry and raspberry sauce and garnished with white chocolate shavings.

The music was still filtering into the room from the kitchen speakers. "It Never Entered My Mind" was playing now, my favorite. I stood as she placed the dessert plate on the table in front of me with two forks.

Without so much as a word, I took her hand in mine and pulled her waist to my body. I stepped to the left and then to the right and then turned fluidly. Bella followed my lead without hesitation.

"We've never danced to a slow song," I whispered to her as I ran my nose along her jawline as I continued to turn slowly. Our dancing previously was always vertical fucking. Grinding against the other for mutual release of something that was pent up inside of us, whether orgasm or lust. It was great, and I hoped to do it again, but _this_ was making love on the dance floor. It was something I'd never experienced before. And this, this sensual motion from side to side not front to back, was sexier than any other dance I'd shared with someone, namely Bella.

"I love you, Edward," she breathed while her hand tightened on my back.

The way the candlelight flickered across her skin made it difficult for me to breathe. She was so insanely gorgeous. I marveled at the way her small body fit perfectly against mine like a puzzle piece. Every one of her curves fit into one of my dips. I lowered my head and kissed her shoulder.

"I love you, too, my beautiful Bella." Pulling back, I saw that her eyes were watery.

"You're really here. You're really back," she whispered, shaking her head in awe. "I'm not dreaming."

Letting go of her hand that I held out to the side, I ran my fingers through her hair so that I could cradle the back of her head while we still swayed. "Not dreaming, baby. I'm here...with you...and we're dancing."

My hand that was on her back trailed to the front where it untied the knot that held the dress closed. The loose fabric ends of the belt dropped as the dress spiraled open. I resisted the urge to groan at the sight before me. Under the gorgeous red dress was red lingerie made of lace. She closed her eyes as my fingers grazed her soft skin at the shoulders, pushing the dress off of them and down to the floor. I leaned to the right and blew out the four candles in the candelabra before I reached for her hand to lead her to the clear end of the table. Picking her up, I sat her on the smooth surface while she started unbuttoning my shirt slowly.

Neither of us cared about the leftover lasagna sitting out on the kitchen counter anymore. The untouched cheesecake was long forgotten at the other end. And, the unopened bottle of champagne would be staying in the metal bucket. There were no objections from either of us. We made love to each other passionately on the dining room table, the first place I saw my future lay itself out for me; a future that I wanted and needed for so long and a future that I would now do absolutely anything to keep.

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Reason #1: They finally made love. It's about damn time. Reason #2: A happy ending to a chapter. It's been so long! :) So, what did you think? Leave me a review!**

**Want to see that sexy corset that Bella's tatas were popping out of? It's in my profile. You'll also find the wrap dress that Edward so expertly untied and slid off her shoulders.  
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	14. Chapter 14 I'm Here

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: angst, language, LEMONS.

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**CHAPTER 14**

**I'm Here...**

"Are you back here, Alice?" I asked as I opened the door to her workroom and looked around.

"Sure am! Cute outfit," she said as she saw what I was wearing. I'd decided to dress up a little today and wear a blue striped skirt and a grey tanktop with a grey cardigan over it. The temperature was chilly now that Fall was here.

"Wow! Has she seen it?" I asked, running my fingers over the gold sequins of the dress she was working on.

"She came in a few hours ago for a fitting. She loves it."

"I bet she did." When we set out to plan this reception for the happy couple, Rosalie made three rules for us to follow. The rest was up to us.

Rule Number One: She would not wear white. Rosalie hadn't been a virgin since she gave it up to the star quarterback Royce King in the back of the pep club bus her freshman year, and she wasn't about to claim to be one now.

Rule Number Two: Alice, Angela and I were to wear black dresses and look stunning doing it.

Rule Number Three: Sparkles. Everywhere.

After an intense team meeting, we found a solution for all three of her rules. It was simple: sequin dresses.

Rosalie would be wearing a long gold dress so that she would stand out in the crowd. Looking at the garment on the dress form, I could tell how wonderful the color would look with her skin tone and hair color.

Our dresses would, of course, be black and sequined but all different to fit our personalities. Alice's dress...short, fun and flirty with tulle wrapped around her like cotton candy. Angela's dress...short and sweet with cap sleeves. My dress...long...long length and long sleeves. At first I had my reservations. I would have preferred short to match theirs, but when I saw the sketch, I about fell off my seat. Alice lovingly called it my "mullet" dress. Business in the front. Party in the back.

As for matching my personality, the front was very conservative in approach – how I used to be. I wasn't necessarily shy or insecure. I was just plain Bella. The neckline would rest on my collarbones flowing straight to the long sleeves, and the hem pooled on the floor covering every inch of my legs and feet.

The back, though, was where the statement was made. It represented coming out of my shell, which the three girls said I had done over the past week since Edward had come back to me. The fabric dipped lower and lower until my back was no longer covered. The bottom of the drape hung dangerously close to my butt, making me cringe at the possible wardrobe malfunctions. Say no to crack.

With Alice's assurance that we would utilize a whole roll of double stick tape if it were necessary, I gave her my blessing on making the dress. I couldn't wait for Edward to see it.

"Can you go grab the bag over on the table for me?" she asked. I went and got it and peeked inside before handing it to her.

"Pretty!" I squealed.

She pulled a metallic gold patent leather clutch out of the bag and handed it to me. "This is yours."

She pulled out two more gold sequin clutches and said those were hers and Angela's. Rosalie's clutch was black.

"I love how we're all coordinated," I smiled as I played with the clasp on mine. "You're amazing, Mrs. Whitlock."

"I know I am," she laughed. "Just make sure you find some gold or black shoes and some amazing jewelry."

"Already taken care of. Is Jasper's tuxedo on order?" We'd decided that the reception would be black-tie because of the sparkles we were required to use. Edward had talked to the costume designer for the movie and she had two tuxedos for him and Emmett being shipped to the set within the next few days for a fitting.

"On order, yes." She was just a little distracted while she did some hand stitching on the back straps.

"Angela said she had Ben's on order, too." I paused to put the clutches back in the bag. "I came over to tell you that I booked the band. And, I'm already getting RSVPs in my email." I sighed. "Dad responded _no_ to the invitation because you know him and suits. I was really looking forward to him and Edward meeting."

Alice looked up and rubbed my upper arm. She could always tell when I was upset. "They'll meet eventually, Bells. This town isn't big enough for them to bypass each other the entire time he's here."

I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess not. So, that means I'm almost done. The caterer has the menu for the hors d'oeuvres and the band faxed over the list of songs they know. I'm going to go through it this afternoon to cross of the absolutely-nots and star the must-plays. I didn't see Emmett's song to Rosalie, so I'll make sure they can learn it in time."

"Sounds great," she said, biting her lip in concentration before exclaiming, "Done!" She took a step back and turned the dress form so I could look at the open back of the dress. "What do you think?"

"It's beautiful, Alice, but I wouldn't have expected less from you. Do you think you'll be needing any help? Everything on schedule?"

"I'm fine. No worries. I'll probably fidget with Rosalie's gown until she walks out in front of everybody, and I'm already done with mine, so all I've got is yours and Angela's to go."

"Perfect," I clapped before giving her a hug so I could get back to work. As I walked back down the sidewalk, my cell phone rang with Edward's ringtone.

"Hello," I purred, turning the key in the lock and opening the door.

"Hey," he replied. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, just got back from Alice's shop. She showed me Rose's dress. Emmett's going to flip when he sees it." I sat down in front of the faxed list of songs from the band, pen in hand ready for some editing.

"I'm sure he will. Though, I don't think he'll care what she's wearing. He thinks _she's_ the most gorgeous girl in the world. I have my objections to that, and I've tried reasoning with him, but you know Emmett."

I laughed. "You're a little biased, Edward. Rosalie is much prettier than I am."

"Pffffft," he objected. "Rosalie is beautiful, yes, but you're a natural beauty my dear. I've seen you without makeup, and you still brought me to my knees...literally."

I choked on my own spit. "Edward! Are you saying this in front of other people?"

It was his turn to laugh now. "No, I'm in my trailer."

After breathing a sigh of relief that people didn't know about the details of our sex life, I decided we'd talked enough about me. "So, how's the first day on the set?"

"Pretty average, I guess. Emmett's been doing a really great job. This is my first time working with him, and I like it. I really do." I heard a click of a door and then wind blowing in the phone, so I knew he was outside now.

"What have you been filming today?" I asked, as I crossed "My Heart Will Go On" off the list. Absolutely not! There will be no visions of that Rose saying goodbye to her love after he's died. Can you say inappropriate? _I'll never let go, Emmett. I'll never let go_, I dramatically thought. _Shudder._

"We started out filming scenes in her house and then we moved to me fixing a fence in her backyard. You should have seen it. I had all of the girls on set swooning and batting their eyes when I took my shirt off."

An apprehensive laugh escaped me. "Girls, huh? Are they pretty?"

He sighed. "Bella, if we hadn't been through what happened in LA, I would joke around with you right now and make some crude remark, but I'm not going to do that. I love you too much and am too ashamed of my past, so no, I don't think any of them are pretty. Maybe the average man would be all over them, but I'm happy where I am."

"Wow," I breathed. Even though he was on the other side of town, he still had me blushing. "That was really sweet."

"I'm a sweet guy. What can I say?" I could hear someone in the background calling for him. "Hey, baby, I've gotta go. I'm holding them up."

"Oh, sorry," I said. "I love you, Edward."

"Not your fault. Don't apologize. I love you, too, Bella. See you tonight when I'm done." I heard some more yelling for him and him snapping back, "Hold your damn horses!" before the line disconnected. I laughed at how easily agitated he got when people were interrupting us.

Starring one more song and crossing out another, I stood up from the couch with my list and turned to head to the register. Looking up, I jumped back, my breath catching in my throat. _Oh, my God. _Standing five feet in front of me, separated only by a piece of plate glass window was the man that had haunted my dreams up until the night that Edward had come back to me. The man that had chased me and attacked me every night Edward was away with such clarity that I woke up screaming in horror. The man that had it out for Edward and now possibly me.

"James," I breathed. I watched as his right hand came up and waved at me while his head tipped slightly to the right. If it had been anybody else, this would have been a friendly gesture, one to return. But, this was not friendly. It was creepy and menacing. A strange chill rolled up and down my spine, and my hair stood on end on my neck.

As he continued to wave and smile at me, he mouthed "Hi, Bella." I took a step backward as he brought up his left hand holding something. My heart rate picked up, thinking it was a weapon, but it was only a camera. His finger pressed down as he took photo after photo of me standing there scared to death of what he was planning on doing. I couldn't move my feet anymore. The frightened part of my brain was screaming that I should run to the door and lock it so that he couldn't come in, but the logical side of my brain was telling me that if I did that, he would beat me there.

My eyes were trained back on his face again watching it turn from a cringe-inducing smile to a threatening sneer. I clutched the papers closer to my chest like they were going to protect me from him.

_"I will always be there for you,"_ Edward had said to me after my first nightmare of James. _"Just call out for me, and I'll be there if I'm not already."_

"Edward," I whimpered. "I need you."

Not five seconds later, James dropped the camera and mouthed "Bye, Bella," before turning and walking away. It was as if my plea had been answered. I collapsed on the chair behind me trying to catch my breath. He was back. James was in Forks. I needed to get out of here.

I jumped up and ran to the door turning all of the locks and rechecking them before flipping the open sign around. I threw the papers I had in my hand on my counter and grabbed my purse, bolting for the back door.

Turning the knob slowly, I peeked my head out and look from side to side feeling an odd sensation of deja vu at the first time I'd met Edward. How badly I needed to hold his hand right now as I ran to my SUV that was roaring to life from my remote start. Once inside, I locked the doors and looked in the back seat and the floorboards for James. I'd seen too many scary movies to not check those areas. Putting it in reverse, I floored it out of my parking spot and headed for the house where I knew they were filming.

Pulling up to the gate on the blocked street, I had to maneuver around dozens of young girls and women that mirrored the same looks of those I saw at the premiere. They were there hoping to get one glimpse of one of the actors. I gave my name to the security guard hoping Edward had actually told them I might be coming by some day. He said he was going to.

"Yes, Ms. Swan. Mr. Cullen had you put on the cleared list. Go about a block ahead and park on the left in front of the house, ma'am. There's a small parking lot against the trees."

I pulled through the gate watching the guard close it behind me in the rearview mirror. Parking in the place he told me, I sat in my car for a few moments trying to calm my nerves and stop the shaking. Breathing in, I told myself that it was okay. James had not done anything to harm me. Breathing out, I told myself that he was just paparazzi, and this was his job. Edward and I were the story now.

No matter how much I tried to convince myself of these things, I couldn't get that nagging feeling out of my stomach that this was bad. This was very, very bad.

I pulled the door handle and stepped out. In front of me was a two-story light blue house, home of Old Man Caius, my trustworthy customer. He'd graciously donated his house to filming for a few weeks once Emmett had seen how perfectly preserved it was. From the inside out, it was a mid-century house, perfect for their Vietnam era movie. Quietly opening the front door because of the "QUIET - Filming in Progress" sign posted on it, I was instantly transported back to the 1950s or 1960s.

Pristine red and gold upholstered furniture with wood accents filled the living room. It looked like it had never been used before, but I knew that it was all original. I'd sat on that couch numerous when I was younger, and it looked the same then as it did now. The downstairs seemed empty until three young women walked by me silently looking me up and down. Personal assistants I guessed. The pretty girls.

Walking deeper into the house, I heard a man and a woman talking upstairs. It was Edward and Victoria. I grabbed the banister and began to ascend the steps. Not having been in this house for years, I'd forgotten about "Triple S," also known as Squeaky Step #7. My foot landed right in the perfect spot creating a loud creaking noise straight out of a horror flick.

"Cut!" I heard bellowed angrily from the room above me. Something was thrown across the room. I cringed. "Did I not say to stay down there until we were done?" The yelling was becoming louder, and the ceiling of the first floor started rumbling. "We've got to reshoot that whole damn...oh," Emmett said, as he made his way around the wall to see me standing there with fear and apology written all over my face.

"I'm soooo sorry, Emmett," I whispered. "I'm...I'm gonna go. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me." I started making my way back down the stairs backwards, once again stepping on Triple S and cringing. The emotions of the past 30 minutes were getting the best of me. Tears were already freaking forming in my eyes. I could cry at anything these days.

"Bella, no wait!" Emmett yelled after me.

"Bella?" I heard Edward ask loudly. "Emmett! You're such an ass!" As I made my way to the living room, ducking my head when I walked by the snickering pretty girls, I heard rumbling again behind me. "Bella!" Edward yelled. Before I could even open the front door, Edward had grabbed me around the shoulders stopping me from leaving.

"Baby, you don't have to leave," he said as he turned me around. His face fell into one of sympathy. "Are you crying? No, please don't cry," he said as he wiped the leaking tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. "It's not a big deal. Victoria and I have that scene down. One take is all we'll need. Okay?" He kissed my eyelids and the tip of my nose.

"Are you sure?" I sniffled. "I'm sorry. I didn't know about not going up the stairs."

"Yes, I'm sure, and how could you have known? I'm happy that you're here. You can see what I do now. Come on." He took my hand and pulled me through the room past the now flabbergasted girls that stood there with their mouths hanging open.

"Ladies," Edward nodded as he walked past them while wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

Now having it burned in my memory forever, I skipped the offending step and walked into the large bedroom where they were filming. About a dozen people stood behind and to the sides of the camera. It amazed me that they could fit that many people in there comfortably and out of the shot. I was just another person to squish in now.

"I'll just wait outside the door," I whispered to him, pulling back from his arm. If the limited amount of space wasn't enough of a reason to remove myself from the bedroom, the fact that I had held up the filming most definitely was enough of a reason.

"Nope, here's a chair," he said, pulling one from against the wall and placing it in the doorway. "Sit."

Reluctantly, I did.

He leaned down to my ear and whispered, "I'm sorry this is the scene you're going to see me shoot because I'm going to kiss her in this scene and lay down in bed with her, but I'm going to be thinking it's you the whole time, okay?" I nodded, knowing that this was his job. It was just acting, and it was something I was going to have to get used to.

Emmett had turned around and mouthed a "sorry" to me, so I returned a small smile and a "sorry" of my own. After a few more minutes of setting up the scene and fixing makeup, they were rolling again, and I watched with rapt attention as Edward's character "Peter" told Victoria's character "Charlotte" that he had been drafted into the war.

The emotion conveyed between the two was so real that I felt myself believing what I was seeing. It was enough to make me forget about James for a while. My heart recognized the pain that Charlotte was feeling; realizing that the love of her life was leaving and may not ever come back. But, my heart broke for Peter who didn't want to leave Charlotte behind. He was devastated.

"Charlotte," Peter whispered, holding her face. "I will come back to you." With those familiar words, the floodgates had opened again. The makeup artist handed a tissue to me as I tried wiping them away unsuccessfully.

The kiss they shared was passionate and wild, igniting something inside of me. I was sitting there watching my boyfriend kiss another woman, but for some reason I was okay with it. Why? Because he'd just told me that he was imagining it was me the entire time. I watched his muscles flex as he held her to his body; contracting and relaxing with each tempo change. He lifted her up and walked to the bed where he laid her down before climbing in with her.

"Cut!" Emmett yelled, snapping me out of my reverie. Edward jumped off the bed, and extended his hand to help Victoria get up. They were laughing.

He walked up to me and bent down to kiss me on the forehead. "You okay?"

I nodded, wiping away one last tear.

"What did you think?"

"It was heartbreaking," I snorted. I pointed at the makeup artist and said, "I'll need this lady to sit next to me every time I watch the movie because it will make me sob like a blubbering idiot."

Emmett came over with a small handheld monitor and showed us the playback of the scene. Everyone nodded, and Emmett said, "That's a wrap on the first day, everybody." The people in the room clapped. "Let's break down the lights and clean up so the owner of the house can use his bedroom again."

Edward changed out of his wardrobe in another bedroom and then took my hand so that we could go downstairs while the crew started removing items from the room. Walking to the catering table, he handed me a bottle of water. "Food?" he asked, waving to the stacks of sandwiches and chips spread out in front of us. I shook my head declining the offer. I was all of a sudden very uncomfortable realizing that I was going to have to tell Edward about James. That was why I had come there, after all.

"So, what made you come to the set?" he asked, taking a bite of a sandwich. "You made my afternoon."

I took a deep breath, knowing I was about to put a damper on his good mood. His hands unknotted my fingers, which I hadn't even noticed I was doing. "Bella? What is it?"

"I had a visitor."

"Who?" he asked, taking a big gulp of his bottled water. I took that time to take a small sip of mine, taking whatever chance I had to stall.

I screwed the cap on and put it on the table. My eyes closed as I took the plunge and came clean. "James."

I heard the crinkling of plastic under pressure from what I could only imagine was Edward's grip crushing the bottle. Opening my eyes, I saw that his were widened in fear.

"I'm okay," I interrupted his internal panic attack. "He didn't even come into the store. When I got up from the couch after talking to you, he was just standing there looking at me through the window."

Emmett walked over to us then and grabbed a sandwich. "What's up?" he asked with a mouthful of food, looking back and forth between the two of us. I stared at Edward who was just staring back at me.

"James is in Forks," I answered, not breaking our gaze. I walked up to Edward and put my hands on his chest. "I'm okay. I promise you he stayed outside. He only waved at me and took some pictures before he left."

Edward snapped out of his trance at that moment. "Emmett, locate a reliable security company. I want a system installed at her house and at the store. Do whatever needs to be done," he spoke evenly.

"I'll do it right now." Emmett was in big brother/bodyguard mode again as he stalked off with his cell phone already at his ear.

"We're going home." He lead me outside, his arm holding me tightly around the shoulders as we made our way toward my car. A black sedan pulled up as we stepped foot into the street, and a man got out.

"I won't be needing you for the rest of the evening, Marcus," Edward said as he took my keys from my fingers just as I pulled them from my pocket. When I was securely in the passenger seat, he ran to the other side and settled into the drivers seat. I could hear the protesting of the leather steering wheel as his grip tightened to the point that his knuckles were white.

"Edward?" I was concerned for him. He was holding in his rage, a rage that I knew was just under the surface, and it was only a matter of time before it erupted from him in a dangerous way. I'd witnessed it the first night James reappeared in his life...in our lives. I'd seen what fear and anger mixed together could do to him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes.

"For what?" I asked. "Tell me, Edward. Talk to me." My voice was strangled at the end.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you. I'm sorry that I'm the reason he's in our lives. I'm sorry that because of something I did, you're afraid."

I unlatched my seat belt and crawled over the console so that I could straddle his lap. Adjusting my skirt up my thigh a few inches so that I could sit comfortably, I took his face in my hands and leaned forward, kissing his eyelids and then his cheeks and then his nose before kissing his mouth. He was unresponsive.

"I love you, Edward," I whispered against his closed mouth. I leaned in again and kissed him harder. He was a little more responsive to me this time but not enough.

"All I have to do is call out for you, right?" He nodded minutely this time, leaning into my newest kiss. He remembered speaking these words.

"You'll be there if you aren't already?" He didn't respond except to kiss me hard enough that my back pressed against the steering wheel and accidentally honked the horn.

His warm, comforting hands were on my thighs now, slowly sliding up my skin. I grabbed the sides of his headrest and used my arms to pull my body forward, pushing him back against the seat.

I rested my forehead on his. "You'll always be there when I need you, won't you?"

"Yes," he whispered. "Always."

I circled my hips into his. "Edward, I need you now," I breathed into his mouth, already wet with our close proximity. He nodded again, curling his fingers around my hips firmly under my shirt. Our location was not an issue anymore. It didn't matter that Marcus was no further than 50 feet away from my car. The crew exiting and re-entering the house was of no concern to either of us. We needed each other, and we needed each other right then.

I curved my hands around his neck and ran my fingers through his hair, while I lifted my hips up and ground them back down against him feeling his arousal. As I lifted myself again while unbuttoning his pants, his flattened hand moved across the front of my panties. I moaned as his thumb slid under the material and circled my clit.

Barely coherent from the pleasure that he was bringing me, I reached into his underwear and released him. He bucked up into my hand when I circled the tip with my thumb and tightened my grip. Moving down and back up while twisting my palm around him, he attacked my mouth.

"Bella, I need to be inside of you," he groaned. "I need to know that you're here and you're okay." I lifted again as I felt his thumb move the fabric to the side. Positioning himself at my entrance, my head fell forward as I slid down over the top of him.

"I love you," I whimpered, feeling my walls stretch to accommodate him.

"Fuck, baby, I love you more than you'll ever know," he breathed, slowly moving me up and down his length. "I'll always be there. I'll always be there for you, Bella."

I grasped his face and crashed my mouth to his while I moved and ground into him. A sharp keening noise escaped my lips when I felt him adjust the seat back to a reclining position and hit the spot inside of me that made my mind go blank of everything except for him. He pulled my torso down with him so that I was laying on his chest. His hands stilled my hips, confusing me, before he thrust up into my wet core vigorously, bringing me to new levels of pleasure. I cried out at the new sensation. This was rougher than we had experienced together. It was...incredible. We had both needed this so desperately.

"Edward! I'm...I'm..." My fingers gripped the back of his seat, and I clenched my eyes shut as he pounded into me. _"Fuck!"_ I gasped. The tingling was spreading up my legs, rushing faster and faster to my midsection.

"Yes," he panted between bursts of air through his lips. "Open your eyes, Bella. I need to see you. Show me that you're actually here with me."

My eyes shot open and locked gazes with his as my orgasm shattered through my body. My mouth hung open but nothing could come out...not a whimper, not a scream, not a curse, not air, not anything. His furious pace stilled immediately as I felt him pulse into me, his orgasm hitting him not even a full second behind mine. I ground down onto him, eliciting a groan from both of us as his hand threaded into my hair so that he could kiss me.

He held me to him for minutes, maybe hours, until we could both breath evenly again. While pushing the button on the side of the seat to raise the back, a loud song jolted us out of our bubble.

"It's Emmett," he said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and answered while leaning in to kiss me again.

Being so close to the phone, I heard Emmett ask, "Are you two done getting busy out there?" Edward growled in frustration as I buried my face in his neck.

"We're done," Edward told him.

I turned my head to the side and kissed his neck while they talked. Emmett had already found a company out of Seattle that could get a large crew to us tomorrow around noon and install it at the house and the store. It sounded like he had to throw a lot of extra money – Edward's extra money – at them for such quick service. I grumbled at how he seemed to not care about the cost of anything when it came to me.

When they were done on the phone, I pulled myself off of him and got back in the passenger seat. Before starting the car, Edward took my hand and kissed it. "I'm here, Bella, and you're safe."

* * *

Friday evening, three days after the installation of the high-tech camera and alarm system in Bella's house and at the bookstore, I was upstairs with Emmett showing him what they'd done while she was downstairs finishing the meal for all of her closest friends. We saw a car pulling up in the camera that sat 100 feet from the house on the driveway. Since it would be nearly impossible to get a security fence all the way around her property, I had the crew install this camera so we could see cars approach.

Switching my sight to the view of the front door, I saw Alice and Jasper walk up and ring the doorbell. I ran out of the spare bedroom, now surveillance room, and made my way down the stairs as Bella came out of the kitchen wiping her wet hands on her apron.

"It's Alice and Jasper," I told her, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek. I opened the door by reaching around her waist and watched as Jasper gave her a hug and handed a bottle of wine to me over her shoulder. He nodded at me, "Edward."

"Jasper," I replied with my own nod. At least it wasn't "actor man" again. I'd been kind of worried that he'd still be short with me. Calling me by my name was a step in the right direction. Alice followed him.

"Someone else is coming!" Emmett yelled from upstairs. Everyone else walked into the kitchen to get out of the cold while I waited for our other guests to pull in front of the house. Up walked a pretty dark-haired woman and a tall dark-haired man that I'd never met.

"Hello, I'm Edward," I said, as I shook both of their hands.

The woman spoke softly, "It's nice to meet you, Edward. I'm Bella's friend Angela. We spoke on the phone." I nodded to her, remembering telling her I'd like to meet her. "And, this is my husband Ben."

"It's nice to meet you both. Come on in," I motioned. "Let's get out of the cold. I'm not used to this weather. Too long in LA." When we got into the foyer, I took their jackets from them and hung them in the coat closet next to the stairs.

I would have told them that they could find everybody else in the kitchen, but it was easy to figure out from the loud laughing that echoed throughout the house. They walked in, perfectly comfortable with their surroundings, and I guessed that they all probably met out here quite often before I came around. We came into the kitchen to find Bella and Alice tasting the alfredo sauce in the large pot on the stove and Jasper nursing a beer.

Bella winked at me and angled her chin to the guys to get me to go talk to them. It was strange being the odd-person out. At least I had Emmett here. I wished he'd come downstairs.

"Where's Rosalie?" Angela asked Bella.

Just then, Emmett walked into the kitchen. "She's at the hospital. One of her patients went into labor."

Angela frowned. "That's too bad."

Emmett and I walked over to the fridge and took out our own beers and started talking to Jasper and Ben. Emmett turned to me. "Did you know that you can rotate the exterior cameras almost 360 degrees?" he asked. I shook my head knowing that I'd requested that feature.

"Cameras?" Jasper asked.

I sighed. "Yes, cameras. There's been a little problem arise since I came into her life."

He stiffened his stance, making himself a few inches taller, bringing him up to my height. _"Problem?"_ he asked tersely. "I warned you."

I put my hands up and looked over at the girls who were chatting animatedly and not paying a bit of attention to us. At least I thought that until I saw Bella look at me and frown.

"Upstairs. Not in front of them," I said to him. I turned back to the ladies and said, "We'll be back. Just want to show the boys the new toy."

Bella nodded understanding what I meant, and we went upstairs to the surveillance room.

"What the hell is all of this?" Jasper asked, looking around the room at the three televisions on the wall that showed the interior of her house, the exterior of her house and the bookstore.

"Take a seat," I said, as I grabbed my own chair and spun it around. Emmett sat next to me while Jasper and Ben sat in front of us on the couch.

"I'll tell you why I've had all of this installed, but first I need some information on Jacob Black."

"Jake?" Ben asked. "Why?"

I took a deep breath. "Did you both know that I threatened him at the bar after he grabbed Bella's ass?" Jasper nodded while Ben shook his head. I recounted the story for Ben and moved on. "Well, it seems that instead of serving as a warning, it served as a catalyst."

"Go on," Jasper said, sitting up in his seat a little straighter.

"When Bella was at the bonfire with her dad in La Push last month, Jake followed her along the beach when she walked off. I don't know what he was planning on doing, but luckily something happened to where she had to run off and leave. I can't even think about what could have happened if I hadn't gotten ahold of her on her phone." I shuddered but continued. "Bella didn't know he had followed her until he came over here a couple weeks ago and threatened to kill me when he found out who I was. It was late at night, she was all alone, and the power was out."

Ben took in a sharp breath, and I heard Jasper's knuckles crack when he tightened his fists.

"He could have hurt her, but he didn't lay a hand on her," I added.

"This is all for him?" Jasper asked, looking around the room. "It seems a little extreme when I could just take him out."

Emmett whooped and extended his fist out to Jasper. Jasper looked at it but didn't return the fist bump. "Okaaaaay," Emmett said, rolling his eyes.

"I've always hated that bastard," Jasper snapped. "If Alice hadn't stopped me, I would have killed him after I found out what he did to Bella. He did a number on her."

I frowned. "What happened?"

He leaned back into the cushions and ran his fingers through his hair, something I was very familiar with doing. He was upset by this. "She called Alice almost immediately after she found those two in bed together, and we came over right away." He leaned forward and pointed at his chest. "I was at that fucking bachelor party. So, was Ben. If we'd have known about him and Jessica..." he was shaking his head.

"When Alice and I pulled up to the house that night, Jake was picking his clothes up off the ground and was throwing them into that shit car of his. I couldn't control myself. I walked up to him and just railed on him. He wasn't going to get away with it."

I smiled realizing that Jasper truly cared about Bella and was after her best interest.

"Alice snapped me out of it by throwing bottles of water at me. She knew better than to try to stop me herself, and that I'm grateful for. But, when we walked upstairs, we found Bella sprawled out on the bathroom floor throwing up in the toilet." He ran his fingers back through his hair again. "I've never in my life seen someone that distraught before, not even after her mom died. She was so stoic when it came to her death, and I didn't understand how she could be. This...this was like her world was gone. You'd think it would be the other way around."

I wanted to run downstairs and kiss Bella, thinking of her that way. She deserved so much better than the way Jake had treated her.

"Seeing her that way, I snapped again. I turned back into her bedroom and ripped the sheets off the bed and threw them at Jake out in the driveway before I kicked him in the stomach. The fucking bastard was laughing."

Everyone in the room was hanging their heads, thinking about what Jasper had said. "She's okay now, though, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," Jasper said. "I hate to admit it because I've had my doubts about you – I'm not gonna lie. But, she's the happiest I've seen her in a long, long time." I smiled slightly. "You can't take all of the credit, though, Edward."

I nodded, knowing that I never could. "I know that," I told him.

"She's strong, that Bella. She's stronger than all of us combined. I've seen how she's healed and transformed since that night her mom died – the way she took over that role to care for her dad. It was difficult to watch. The whole community watched day in and day out how she silently struggled as homemaker and caretaker, but she never accepted help. Lord knows she needed it. Shit, she was only 17."

The curiosity inside of me wanted to ask about her mother and what had happened, but I held back knowing that she would tell me in her own time. It would be out of line for me to ask, and I wasn't sure if I could forgive myself for prying into a dark part of her life that she held locked away inside of her.

This secret was completely opposite of mine. I didn't want to tell Bella about Tanya and James because I was ashamed and worried that she would leave. She didn't want to tell me about her mother because it was too difficult to even think about. I would wait until she was ready to tell me because I couldn't imagine causing her more pain.

"I hate saying this," Jasper continued, "but if Jake and Bella hadn't been brought together over the tragedy, she probably would have been worse off for a lot longer despite the amount of pain he brought her six months ago."

"Why were they brought together over her mom dying?" Emmett asked, popping his head up. I wanted to stop Jasper from answering. I knew that I'd find out too much information. But, I'd come up here to find out information on Jake. This could give me some insight on him.

Jasper looked at me like he expected me to answer before turning back to Emmett. "Both of their mothers died in the car accident." My breath caught in my throat. I knew too much already and it crushed me.

"Stop," I said, putting my hands up. "Bella hasn't told me about this. I don't want to know any more about how her mother died until she tells me."

"Okay," Jasper said. He was looking at me oddly. It was a mix of surprise and sadness and something I couldn't place. "But, really, don't you think this is overkill? He threatened to kill you. Have him arrested. Charlie will be more than happy to put him behind bars again, especially since he'd get to keep him there this time."

I looked over at Emmett and braced myself. "He's not the only problem."

I told them a cut-down version of my story with Tanya and James. Jasper and Ben responded the way I knew they would. Both were disgusted by my actions and angry that I'd pulled her into it, but they both also knew that I was not happy about it either.

"Now that you know my sordid history, I can tell you why we have these cameras set up at the house and the bookstore." I took another deep breath. "James is in town and went to the bookstore on Monday. He scared the shit out of her."

Jasper shot up out of his seat. "What?" he yelled.

"I know," I groaned. "That bastard found her and was standing at the front window staring at her while we talked on the phone. She has no idea how long he was there, but from what she's told me, he started waving at her in a creepy way and mouthed hello to her. Then, he took some photos and left. I don't know what he was getting at, but he definitely freaked her out. Me, too."

"What's he look like?" Ben asked.

"Long blonde hair, wears it in a ponytail, few inches shorter than me, tan. Why?"

"I own the lighting store on Bella's block. Angela owns the photography studio next to me. I'll keep an eye out for him and have her do it, too."

"Thank you," I said. "Do you have your phone on you?"

"Yeah, give me your number," he said. I gave him my cell, as did Emmett just in case. Jasper put the numbers into his phone, too, while we read them out. Once they gave us their numbers, we stood up. We'd been upstairs for a while. Dinner was probably ready.

When we walked into the kitchen, the girls were plating up the fettuccine alfredo, garlic bread and salad. After giving Bella a kiss and letting it linger longer than usual because of what I'd been told tonight, I took the bottle of wine into my fingers along with our wine glasses and went into the dining room. Bella and I walked to the end of the table where we'd made love to each other and sat down with a small smile playing on both of our lips.

Images from that night flooded my mind. Whispers of devotion shared between two lovers, cries of ecstasy leaving both of our lips, sweat and heat mingled with the coolness of the evening coming through the windows. Her panting and arching underneath of me while I buried myself inside of her over and over again until we both fell asleep on the floor, naked and tangled together.

I felt a hand rest on top of mine, snapping me out of my daydream. "Edward?" Bella asked. "Are you going to join in on the toast?"

"Shit, sorry," I muttered while shaking my head and raising my glass. I saw Bella smiling to my left. I know she knew what I had been thinking about.

"To friends and family," Bella said. "We wish Rosalie could have been here tonight since we were getting the group together one last time before the big reception. But, here's to you, Emmett, and to your beautiful bride Rosalie. Welcome to our family." He nodded and thanked Bella. We started to take a drink, but Alice stopped us.

"Edward, I want to welcome you to our family, too. Our Bella has finally found someone that equals her. We have all known Bella for many years, and I'm so grateful that you saw her for the amazing woman she is almost instantly. You didn't need to know her for years to see what a beautiful soul she possesses. From all of us, thank you for loving her."

My heart was freaking soaring. I'd never had anyone outside of Bella say something to me that moved me so much. Looking at Bella, I wiped away the tear that was falling down her cheek. I mouthed an "I love you" to her and she did the same to me. "Thank you, Alice," I said, and we all took a drink from our glasses.

Dinner seemed to pass quickly because of the laughter we all shared. Emmett and I enjoyed hearing stories about our women as they grew up, and we enjoyed telling some of our own to them. Though we'd grown up thousands of miles apart, us in Chicago and them here in Forks, we found out that we all shared similar pasts. We were all deeply loved by our families and had a strong group of friends to support us.

Bella got up to go into the kitchen to grab dessert, so I got up and followed her to help. We pulled the individual miniature cheesecakes out of the fridge and set them on the counter.

She turned to me and smiled. "Since we didn't get to finish ours the other night, I figured I'd make some more so we could actually taste it."

I brushed my lips against hers. "I love you, Bella," I whispered to her, as I rubbed the tips of our noses together.

"I love you, too, Edward," she said, nuzzling the side of my face with her own and throwing her arms around my neck. I lifted her off the floor and pulled her face up to my face and kissed her again before I put her down and helped carry the cheesecake into the dining room.

After the last person left, we cleaned up the kitchen and made our way into the living room where we watched television. She was exhausted from her long day, so I had her lay down and put her head in my lap so that I could massage her scalp. Within fifteen minutes, I felt her breathing even out. She was peacefully asleep. I carefully got out from underneath of her head and lifted her up so I could carry her to bed. I laid her down on her side and carefully removed her clothing.

My mind drifted to that first night when I'd brought her home. Running my hands down her calves so I could take her heels off of her feet, I remembered how the softness of her skin had affected me even then. Unzipping her pants, I slid them off of her legs and remembered how I'd wanted to undress her that night but didn't out of respect. After unbuttoning her blouse, I lifted her torso off of the bed and slid it off her shoulders. She stirred slightly but fell back to sleep when I kissed her hair and rested her head back on her pillow. I pulled the covers over the top of her and left the room quietly to go into the surveillance room and take one last look.

Sitting down in front of the three huge monitors, I rewound the digital recordings and watched as everyone left down the driveway. I moved the cameras around and checked all angles around the house before I stood up and stretched. It was time for bed.

While I was walking down the hallway, I thought I heard whimpering coming from the bedroom, and my heart went into overdrive. She was having a nightmare, and I wasn't there. I sprinted down the hallway, hearing her get louder and louder as I got closer. "No, James! Please don't kill me!" She was begging for her life. Slamming the door open, I watched as she shot up into a sitting position on the bed screaming her head off before dashing to the bathroom, holding her mouth. I ran after her and held her hair and rubbed her back as she heaved into the toilet.

"Why does he always want to kill me?" she cried, her face still in the bowl. "It's so real every time. I can feel it, Edward."

"Feel what?" I asked.

"The gun."

I collapsed to the floor behind her, my strength leaving my legs. _A gun. _She was also dreaming that James had a gun. "How many times have you had this dream?" I croaked.

She fell to the floor beside me and pressed her face into the tile. Her skin was flushed and warm. "Every night that you were away," she whispered. "Every night that you haven't shared a bed with me."

I choked back the tears that were threatening to drop from my eyes. I knew it. She'd been hiding it from me all along. Were they the same dreams that I'd been having but from her point of view? Was she on the ground, her twisted body next to him? Was I there to save her?

"Will you tell me what happens?"

She took a shaky breath. "I'm standing there walking toward you when your face goes blank all of a sudden. Then, I feel it...the gun. He presses it against my temple. I don't ever see him, but I know it's him. He's not alone, though. Someone's off to my left laughing...it's Jake." I tensed when she said his name. Jake had never been in any of my dreams. "I wake up just as I hear the trigger being pulled."

I drew her into my lap and rocked her back and forth.

"It will always only be a dream," I whispered, kissing her sweaty forehead. I'd spoken those words to her before when we were in LA. I meant them then as much as I did now. It was just...unfathomable. That was something that absolutely could not happen. No. It couldn't happen.

After a few more minutes on the floor, I helped her stand at the counter and brush her teeth before I carried her to bed again. I laid down and tucked her into my side, placing her head on my bare chest. My arm tightened around her, afraid to let go, afraid of the future.

"You can go to sleep now, Bella," I whispered into her hair. "I'm here."

I was here _this time_ to comfort her. I'd promised that I would always be there for her, but I'd already broken that promise three times. First, she'd had to be woken up from a nightmare by a photographer while I was doing interviews. Second, Jake had stormed into her house and scared her before I got home. And, third, James had appeared outside her store while I was filming. My job was a problem.

I felt her body relax against my chest, so I knew she had finally gone back to sleep. Searching my mind for solutions to how I could protect her and be with her at all times, I could only come up with one. My arms pulled her tighter to my chest.

"I'm here," I whispered again. "And, I'm never leaving."

* * *

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**Bella's outfit for when she went to set is in my profile, if you want to check it out.**

Oh, boy. James has found his way to Forks. Did you like the back story explaining the implosion of Bella and Jake's relationship? You got a little more info on how her mom died, too. Were you surprised? If you want to refresh your memory about the accident, there's more info in Chapter 7 when Billy is hugging her.

What do you think Edward has decided to do at the end now that he knows he can't keep his promise to her?

I hope you caught on quickly that I switched the POV's. I don't plan on doing that often, but to keep the chapter a good length, I had to this time.

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have an account because I can't reply if you don't. Also, make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**_Check my profile for when I'll be posting my next update. I'm going to start posting on Monday mornings for at least a few weeks because I think it will be easier for me.  
_**


	15. Chapter 15 For You

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: angst, language, LEMONS.

**Two new songs this chapter****! Check them out: ****http:/www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139 and here: ****http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=t-ouxPhYy7Y**

****All of the pretty dresses can be found in my profile plus Edward in a tux (one of my favorite photos of The Pretty). Hot damn!****

* * *

**CHAPTER 15**

**For You  
**

"Almost...got it," I grunted, stretching up as far I could to hang the last damn string of crystals on the ceiling. "Done."

Stepping off the ladder, Emmett and I looked up. Despite what a bitch it was to hang 575 forty-foot strands of crystal beads from one wall to the other along the ceiling, it did look amazing. And, this was in a brightly lit room during the day. It would probably look incredible tonight when it was lit by soft golden light and candles.

"Shit," I breathed, shaking out my hands. "My arms are numb."

"What a baby," Emmett laughed.

"How many did you hang, asshole?" I asked. Emmett opened his mouth with a pop before closing it again. "Exactly. Screw you." We walked over to the kitchen counter and gladly crossed off _Crystals on Ceiling_ and grumbled when the next thing on the list was _Finish White Lights in Trees._

"Why do we get the shit jobs?" Emmett asked.

"Because we're men."

Jasper and Ben would be back any minute with another 150 boxes of white lights that Angela had stored at her photography studio. Were these going on a few trees up by the house? No, it wouldn't be that easy. We were decorating trees all the way up the nearly one mile driveway. _Awesome. _Whose bright idea was this? _Sigh. _Bella's. That's why I did it with a smile and an "I love you."

_Ding-dong._ This was probably the twentieth time the doorbell had rang since six this morning, and it was only eight. The door opened silently this time much to my relief. The screeching alarm had been tripped twice already this morning. Emmett grabbed the canvas bag full of the lights we had left from last night when we decorated nearly twenty trees and walked toward the front door so we could get some more extension cords.

Before we even got out of the kitchen, Emmett and I cringed at the shrill screech that echoed throughout the first floor of the house. We looked at each other and laughed.

"Mom," we both said in unison. Emmett and I strode through the living room and into the foyer where we found Bella and Rosalie tucked into our mother's arms, the sides of their faces smooshed against her chest. Their heads were turned toward each other, and their eyes were wide in surprise.

"Maaaa!" I whined. "Let them go."

"Ooooh, Edward, quit that. I've had to wait far too long to meet these girls. First your father forbade me. Then you forbade me. And, you wouldn't even let me talk to Bella on the phone!"

I huffed. "Because you would have talked her ear off and asked her embarrassing and personal questions."

"So what. Maybe I would have, but it's not every day that my sons fall in love."

Despite her scolding of me, she finally released them. Taking Rosalie's face in her hands, she smiled.

"You must be Rosalie, my Emmett's bride."

"Yes, Mrs. Cullen," Rosalie said.

"You are a knock-out. Welcome to the family, dear. Carlisle and I are so happy that Emmett found someone that he loves so deeply and that loves him. And, please call me Esme. I am your mother-in-law now, sweetie." She kissed Rosalie's cheek and then turned to Bella and took her face between her hands.

"And, you must be my Edward's Bella," she sighed.

"Yes, Mrs. Cullen," she nodded. Mom raised her eyebrow before Bella fixed her mistake. "Yes, Esme."

"That's better, dear," she smiled. "My, my...our boys sure do know how to pick stunningly beautiful women. You are gorgeous, Bella." Even though her back was to me, if I knew Bella at all, her face was scarlet from blushing.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You are too kind. I wish I had even the slightest hint of makeup on right now. I'm so embarrassed to meet you looking like this." _Looking like this?_ I found her tight yoga pants, tank top and damp hair incredibly sexy. She was comfortable, and there was nothing sexier on a woman.

"Not necessary," mom said, brushing a piece of Bella's hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. "You're naturally beautiful." Bella's head dipped. I walked up behind her and kissed her on the cheek feeling the heat of her blush. She laughed in embarrassment. Mom leaned forward and I gave her a kiss on the cheek, too.

"Hi, mom."

"Hello, my youngest."

My father walked in the front door then, speaking with Jasper and Ben, all of them carrying bags of lights.

"I've been recruited," he laughed, holding up two bags.

"Hey, dad," I said, giving him a hug. "It's good to see you." It had been three months since Emmett and I had seen our father. "Did you get settled into the hotel?" They'd gotten into Forks last night around midnight.

"Yep," he said. "With all three large suitcases."

Emmett chuckled. "You're only staying for a couple of days, right?"

Dad rolled his eyes. "You know your mother." We did. It didn't surprise me at all. She always overpacked for vacations.

"Point me in the direction that I'm needed!" mom exclaimed, clapping her hands together. As they walked away, I heard mom say to Bella and Rosalie, "I brought photo albums, girls. I've waited almost 30 years to embarrass them! I have so many bathtub photos! There's little boy penis all over the place."

My jaw seriously fell off and bounced on the ground. Someone was going to have to screw that fucker back on. At least Bella knew that little boy penis grew up to be a man penis. It was huge. It was gigantic. A real monster of a cock. Well...it was big, anyways. Big enough. It got the job done, dammit!

All of the girls lead her into the living room to decorate now that we were done with the ceiling, and the rest of us men went outside in our jackets to start stringing the lights in the trees. We'd gotten about a third of the mile done last night after we were finished filming for the week, so we were going to pick up where we left off.

Around noon, Bella came running down the driveway to get us to come in for sandwiches and stew that she'd made in the crock pot.

"Here's Emmett with a soap mohawk and soap beard," mom pointed out in the third album she'd shown the girls since we'd sat down with our bowls and plates. "And there's Edward holding his willy in the water. He had just turned two. He was just discovering that it felt good to touch it."

I banged my forehead on the dining room table completely mortified. This was the worst thing she could have done to me. I was disowning her.

"Oh, here's Emmett playing with Edward's willy," mom giggled. My head shot up to glare at her. Bella, Rosalie, Alice and Angela were about to fall out of their chairs in hysterics.

"My God, mother! You make it sound so incestuous!"

"Grow up, Edward. Emmett was only three. Yours was already bigger than his. He was always a curious boy, you know that."

It was Emmett's turn to bang his head on the table. He was muttering something that sounded like, "My dick is huge. My dick is huge. My dick is fucking huge." _Mine too, brother. Fucking huge._

"Alright, Esme," dad interrupted. "I think you've embarrassed them enough. If you love them, I'd recommend putting the albums away until they've at least left the room. I'm not quite sure how much longer they will claim you as their mother if you keep this up."

When we polished all the food off, due to the fact that she said she had no room in the refrigerator to keep leftovers, we manly men went back outside and strung the rest of the twinkle lights.

The band and caterer arrived just as we finished, so we helped with setup. I thank the gods above that Bella had double doors for the piano to come through. What a pain in the ass it would have been to move that inside without them. The setup of the band equipment went quickly and smoothly with our help while the women helped the caterer place the heated and cooled trays where they were to go.

An hour and a half before the event was to start, we were finished. Mom and dad had gone back into town to the hotel to get dressed in their evening best and the women had gone upstairs almost an hour prior to get ready. True to wedding tradition, Alice had forbidden Emmett from seeing Rosalie after she started to get ready. In fact, we were all forbidden from seeing our ladies until the party was starting.

Knowing we wouldn't need a full hour and a half to take showers and throw on our monkey suits, we wandered around downstairs and greeted the security guards that I'd hired for the evening. I wasn't taking any chances. This was a highly publicized event in the small town of Forks. Nearly 200 people were attending from all across the country. Some were Rosalie's family and friends, lots were Emmett's acquaintances from LA, and the rest was the entire cast and crew from our movie.

If James or Jake wanted to make a scene, they could have easily snuck in with the masses if I hadn't been prepared. Being that I was a thorough protector of my Bella, I'd given each guard a photo of both of the men. It wasn't easy to track down photos of those two, but with the amount of money I had, it wasn't _that_ difficult to get their driver's license pictures. What a couple of ugly dudes.

I heard a honk outside. Swallowing the cantaloupe wrapped in pancetta I'd stolen off the tray of hors d'oeurves along the windows, I wiped my hands on a towel and went outside.

"Hey, Marcus," I said, just as he got out of the car. "Thanks for doing this." I'd paid Marcus extra to help charter guests from the road. We'd hired a valet company to take care of cars so they wouldn't have to worry about anything but waiting for Marcus and the other driver we'd hired to come back out to the heated tent we'd set up to bring them to the house.

"It's my job, boss." I smiled at his overall willingness to do this tonight. He had really seemed to be in a better mood since he'd come back up here. We'd had no problems, much to my surprise.

We drove out to the camera I'd installed on the driveway. "When you bring people up, please stop here and have the security guard mark off their names on the guest list. I don't anticipate problems, though, since we've double-checked this list. Everybody that was invited is on this list, whether they RSVP'd or not."

I got out of the car and showed him where the camera was placed. "We've chosen this spot because of the camera that's hidden in this tree. If there's a problem, the guard is supposed to radio up to the house and we'll check the video surveillance to approve them or not."

He nodded in understanding. I dismissed him to go ahead and wait out at the road just in case we had some early guests.

Back at the house, I went upstairs and found that Emmett and Jasper had already showered in the two guest bathrooms and were getting dressed. Ben was in one of the showers, so I headed into the other.

"Stupid tux," Emmett grumbled, fidgeting with his bowtie. "I hate dressing up this fancy."

"Ahhh, come on, Emmett," I said, angling my chin up to adjust the straightness of mine. "It's your wedding reception. It's not often you have to wear a tuxedo." One more nudge of the thing and it was perfect.

He cleared his throat, and I turned to him to see what was up. He jerked his head toward the corner of the room, silently asking me to follow. I followed him over noticing he looked nervous about something.

"What?" I asked him. He was already married, so this couldn't be him having cold feet. At least I hoped he wasn't having second thoughts on this whole marriage thing to Rosalie. I might have to try to pound his ass for it, if that was the case.

"I...ummm...I was wondering something."

"Spit it out," I said. I was getting a little more pissed with each passing second. My love for Bella was rock solid, and if he was going to make a mockery out of falling in love quickly, I was going to have a problem with that.

He leaned in to me and whispered. "Have you ever...like...measured it?"

"Measured what?" I asked. He rolled his eyes, and then it hit me. _Holy shit!_ "My dick?" I whisper-yelled.

"No, your turds," he deadpanned.

I grimaced at how crass he could be, but then a smirk spread across my face. "Is my older brother worried that I'm bigger than him in the man department?"

"Fuck, Edward! You heard mom downstairs earlier. You were bigger than me when you were barely out of infancy! I always thought of myself as a pretty packin' dude, but...well...shit! That doesn't bode well for me."

I hung my head and shook it from side to side. This was hilarious. When I raised it, I said, "Of course I've measured, Emmett. What man hasn't?"

He released a breath. "On the count on three?"

"On the count of three," I confirmed. We both said the numbers at the same time, "One. Two. Three"

"Eight inches..." Emmett trailed off, realizing I was not revealing. I busted up laughing because he fell for it. Of course I wasn't going to tell my freaking brother my size. That was just gross. Then, he slugged me in the arm.

"You dick!" he yelled. "I can't believe you did that to me!" I couldn't stop laughing.

"I think you should be grateful I didn't answer," I told him. His face went blank.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked quietly.

"Exactly what you think it meant," I answered. His eyes widened, and I turned around to face the mirror to make sure my bow tie was still straight. _Eight...and a half._

The doorbell rang, so I went downstairs to greet whoever it was. Glancing at the clock, I noted that it was only 20 minutes before the start of the party, so lots of guests were probably on their way. When I rounded the corner, I saw it was my parents.

"You look beautiful, mother," I told her, giving her a careful hug. She had on an elegant one-shouldered purple satin dress that flared at the bottom. Father, dressed in his favorite tuxedo, held her arm in the crook of his elbow.

"Where are the girls?" mom asked.

"Upstairs. Just go up and turn left. It's the door at the end of the hallway."

Emmett came down then and said that Marcus had pulled up to the camera with a carload of guests. They filtered in over the next half hour until the lower level and deck outside were packed with people chatting, laughing, eating and dancing to the light jazz that the band provided.

"Have you seen the girls?" I asked Emmett. We hadn't seen any of them for hours, and now most of the guests were here.

"Nope, and I'm getting antsy," he replied. Mom had come back down with fucking tears in her eyes, so I knew what they were keeping from us was good. Really good.

I walked up to her. "Can you go check to see if everything is alright? People are starting to ask." That was a small fib. Okay, it was a flat-out lie, but I wanted to see Bella. I'd barely gotten to spend any time with her today. I woke up next to her and immediately had to jump into the shower so that I could meet Emmett downstairs to do the fucking crystals...which looked absolutely amazing by the way. Though I was seriously doubting the need for them at strand number 371, they did, in fact, complete the look they were wanting to achieve. Someone else was doing them at our wedding, though, if she wanted them...unless she asked me to, and then I wouldn't be able to say no to her. As I've said before, I'd do anything she ever asked of me.

_Our wedding. Son of a bitch._

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement at the top of the stairs. Turning my head, I saw Ben cross the room and walk up the stairs to meet Angela half-way. Her dress was very pretty. Knee-length, black sequins, looked like it was almost striped. She had a camera strapped around her neck because she was this evening's photographer.

Angela turned around when she got to the base of the stairs and held up her camera to start the photos. I looked back up and saw Alice walking down. Her dress was different. It was shorter, black sequins under black tulle that wrapped around the dress. She looked like cotton candy. Jasper had already walked up to her and was kissing her neck. That man loved his wife.

There were a few gasps in the room as Bella rounded the corner and started making her way down the steps. I about collapsed to my knees. _Jesus Christ._ Her dress was long, unlike the other girls and it had long sleeves, but the whole thing clung to her body and pooled down at the floor. I groaned. I pushed through the crowd as politely as I could so that I could get to her before she hit the last step. Getting to her just as the toe of her gold shoe hit the floor, I swept her up in my arms and spun her while kissing her lips. She giggled.

It was then that I felt the back. Placing her down on the floor, I spun her around. My mind barely registered the clapping as Rosalie walked down the stairs.

"Bella," I breathed, running the tips of my fingers down her exposed back. "This is the sexiest dress I've ever seen. Oh, God. Bella..." I was hard instantly. There was nothing more that I wanted to do than take her upstairs and leave this black tie party behind for the rest of the night.

She looked over her shoulder, her shiny mahogany curls cascading down her back. She was smiling but not blushing. "Do you like it?" she asked. Her voice was lower, but not quite a whisper. She was tempting me. She knew what she was doing with this dress, that look, that smile and that voice.

I felt the crowd shift around us toward the living room and kitchen, but I held her there. Bending down to her ear, I spoke to her quietly. "I'm not going to be able to keep my hands off of you tonight. What do you think you are doing to me, Bella?" I pressed myself closer to her, making sure my erection grazed her hip. I expected her to gasp or be surprised by it, but she just ran her finger down my white shirt seductively and bit her bottom lip before pressing herself into me even more.

"You look incredibly fucking sexy in your tuxedo, Edward. But, from what I've seen, I like you naked even more." She turned and then swayed her hips toward the crowd. I groaned loudly, recognizing the words that I had said to her when I saw her dress for the premiere.

I heard a chuckle behind me. Turning my head, Mike, a security guard, stood at the door laughing at what he just witnessed. So much for that being a private moment between the two of us.

"I know," I laughed along with him. "Fuck. Me."He shook his head and turned around to watch for more people showing up, so I took that moment to adjust myself before heading into the crowd. _Grandma Elizabeth and Grandpa Edward going at it on my bed. _Worked like a charm, just like it did every time. It was seriously sick how many times I'd had to remember walking in on my grandparents having sex.

Rosalie and my parents were talking when I walked up to our group of friends in the kitchen.

"What made you go into obstetrics, Rosalie?" I knew my dad would be interested in talking medicine with her.

She looked at Emmett with a sad expression. His face mirrored hers. "Well, when I was in high school, I had to have my right ovary removed because of severe endometriosis. Only being 16 when I had the surgery, I had no plans at that time to have children, but as I got older, it started to hit me that I may never be able to have a child of my own. When I went to college, I decided that I wanted to go into the medical field, obstetrics specifically, so that I could be around babies for the rest of my life. As I always say, I may never have my own, but I can help bring them into the world every day."

I thought back to that first night at the bar. Rosalie had said that to me when Marcus dropped her off, but I had no idea what she actually meant by it; what she wasn't revealing. Feeling a sadness for her and my brother that surprised me, I held Bella close to my chest for comfort.

"I guess you could say that I have 231 children including 14 sets of twins and one sets of triplets. I send all of them birthday cards every year and receive pictures from their real parents at Christmas and Easter, on their birthdays, et cetera. I have an entire wall in my office that's covered in their photos. It's like a extremely large refrigerator door," she laughed, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. We all laughed along with her. Rosalie seemed to accept what life had thrown at her for the most part; she took this devastating turn of events and did something great with it.

Emmett spoke then, holding his wife to his side. "We've talked, and I think we're going to try for one of our own for a while, and if that doesn't work, we're going to adopt. There are lots of children out there that need homes. Hell, we might adopt no matter what." He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek as my mother wiped a tear from her eye.

A month ago I would have been terrified of the thought of my brother becoming a father - scared shitless, actually. But, I'd seen a change in him over the past few weeks. Emmett always had it in him to be a mature adult, and that was evident the night of the premiere with how he handled Bella and my belligerent ass, but he enjoyed goofing off and the hilarity it ensued more than being serious.

"Rosalie," my mother whispered, leaning in to her. "I'm a grief counselor, dear, and if you ever want to talk about anything you're feeling, do not hesitate at all to call me."

"Thank you, Esme," Rosalie replied. "I've had a lot of time to get over what happened, but I won't deny that sometimes it doesn't bother me. I will call you if I need to talk."

"_Mr. Cullen."_ I turned to see that a man was standing behind me. It was Mike from the front door.

"Yes?" I asked him.

"Can you come with me upstairs, sir?"

Bella had heard my name called and turned around with me, tucking herself under my arm. Her eyes were concerned. "James?" she whispered.

"Stay here. I don't know what's wrong. I'll take care of it." She nodded her head and swallowed hard.

Climbing the stairs, I was about to lose my shit. If it was James, I was going to kill him. Mike opened the door to the surveillance room, and I walked in behind him. He handed me a radio and pointed to the button on the side. "Push that to talk."

"This is Edward Cullen," I said. "What's the problem?"

Focusing on the screen of the camera out on the driveway, I saw the lower half of a man leaning against Marcus' black sedan but couldn't tell who it was.

"_We have one of the men from the photos trying to get in the party, Mr. Cullen."_

"What is his name?" I asked, tensing.

"_Jacob Black, sir."_

"Remove him from the premises immediately. Forcibly if necessary," I said. Releasing the button on the radio, I slammed my hand down on the table in front of me. "Son of a bitch! He just couldn't stay away!"

"We'll take care of it, Mr. Cullen," Mike said. He took the radio back and started speaking to the guard at the camera.

"Tyler? Is he leaving without incident?"

It took a several seconds for him to respond. "Yes. The driver is taking him back to the road to get his car from valet."

Mike clipped the radio back to his belt and stood up straight. "We'll keep you posted if anything else happens, sir."

I thanked him and walked back downstairs in a far worse mood than I had been 15 minutes ago. Jake just had to try it. He had to try to crash the party. The amount of money I'd had to spend on getting both the cameras installed and the security firm to cover tonight's party was so worth it right now thinking about what it may have cost if they weren't in place. What if he'd have gotten near Bella? God, I couldn't even think like that.

I needed to find her. I needed to feel that she was here. "Where's Bella?" I asked Jasper, when I ran into him in the kitchen.

"Ummm...haven't seen her in probably ten minutes. Everything okay?" I'm sure he could tell that I was a little exasperated.

I took a deep breath. "Jake tried to get into the party. Security stopped him."

He stood up a little straighter and sat his wine glass on the counter. "Is he gone?" he asked. Jasper was ready to snap his neck.

"They asked him to leave, so my driver took him back to the road to get his car from valet."

"I'll keep my eye out just in case," he said, stalking off toward the front door.

I turned around and started weaving my way through the crowd looking for Bella. Jasper not seeing her for ten minutes did nothing to calm my nerves.

"Alice!" I yelled to get her attention, seeing her standing in front of me. "Have you seen Bella?" She smiled and pointed up at the stage. My eyes traveled in the direction of her finger, and there she was. My Bella.

"Good evening, everyone," she spoke into the microphone set up on the stage. "I hope you're having a wonderful time tonight helping us celebrate the marriage of my dear friends Rosalie and Emmett. And, I hope you're enjoying the music that the band has been providing." She angled her hand behind her to the band, and the guests clapped.

"Rosalie, Emmett, I see how good you are for each other. Emmett you calm down the wild child in Rosalie. Rosalie, you just calm down the child that is known as Emmett." Everyone including myself laughed. How true that was. Mom was even laughing. "But, really, you two are so happy together, and that makes me happy for you."

Rosalie blew a kiss to Bella.

"Emmett asked me to perform a song with the band for their first dance as husband and wife, a song that means a great deal to me because I now know the true meaning of the song due to my own happiness. Congratulations, you two." _Huh? Perform a song? _Emmett led Rosalie onto the dance floor and took her hand.

She sat down at the piano, her gorgeous back to me, as her fingers rested on the ivory. She started playing a perfect melody, her back flexing with her moving arms. Her head lifted, bringing her mouth to the microphone that was angled down in front of her, and she started to sing.

_Something in your eyes  
Makes me want to lose myself  
Makes me want to lose myself  
In your arms  
There's something in your voice  
Makes my heart beat fast  
Hope this feeling lasts  
The rest of my life  
If you knew how lonely my life has been  
And how long I've been so alone  
If you knew how I wanted someone to come along  
And change my life the way you've done _

That's exactly how I felt. I walked up onto the stage and sat on the piano bench next to her as the band picked up and started playing along with her.

_It feels like home to me  
It feels like home to me  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from  
It feels like home to me  
It feels like home to me  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong_

Forks felt like my home. This house felt like my home. Bella was my home. Wherever she was, was where I belonged. Her face fell as she started to sing the next verse.

_A window breaks down a long dark street  
And a siren wails in the night  
But I'm alright 'cause I have you here with me  
And I can almost see through the dark there is light _

Darkness was all around us. James and Jake seemed to show up just as we got comfortable. We had to come out of this, though. There had to be light at the end of the tunnel.

_If you knew how much this moment means to me  
And how long I've waited for your touch_

She looked over at me now, as she sang the next lines.

_If you knew how happy you are making me  
I never thought that I'd love anyone so much _

I kissed her shoulder, unable to keep my love for her held back any longer.

_It feels like home to me  
It feels like home to me  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from  
It feels like home to me  
It feels like home to me  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong_

_It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong_

Her eyes closed as she finished out the song. "I'm home," I whispered against her skin as her fingers pulled off the keys and laid in her lap. I hadn't ever told her that I felt that way about this place despite having felt that way for so long.

"Was it James?" she asked. My heart broke painfully in my chest when I looked up at her watery eyes. She had been scared since I'd left despite my assurances.

"No – Jake," I answered. Her face fell into a frown. "He's gone, baby. They took him back to his car. Don't worry about it. I'm taking care of this – of you."

She grabbed my hand and started to stand to leave the stage, but before she could move from the bench, I pulled her down on the other side of me so that I was on the microphone side.

"Excuse me?" I spoke into the mic. "Hello?" Everyone turned around and looked at me. "I'm Edward. I'm sorry I don't have anything prepared. I probably should have considering Emmett is my brother and all. But, I want to dedicate a song to Rosalie from my brother because I know that this is the way he feels about her. Welcome to our family, Rosalie." They made their way back to the dance floor.

I leaned into Bella's ear and whispered, "For you."

Placing my fingers on the keys, I started with the tune that I'd played a thousand times because it was one of my favorite songs. There was never any woman that I could sing this to because there was never any woman that made me feel this way.

_She's got a way about her  
I don't know what it is  
But I know that I can't live without her_

_She's got a way of pleasin'  
I don't know why it is  
But there doesn't have to be a reason  
Anyway_

_She's got a smile that heals me  
__I don't know why it is  
But I have to laugh when she reveals me_  
_  
She's got a way of talkin'  
I don't know why it is  
__But it lifts me up when we are walkin'  
Anywhere_

_She comes to me when I'm feelin' down  
Inspires me without a sound  
She touches me and I get turned around_

_She's got a way of showin'  
How I make her feel  
And I find the strength to keep on goin'_

_She's got a light around her  
__And everywhere she goes  
A million dreams of love surround her  
Everywhere_  
_  
She comes to me when I'm feelin' down  
Inspires me without a sound  
She touches me, I get turned around_

I looked at Bella and saw her smiling at me, happy tears filling her eyes now, and the problem with Jake disappeared from my mind.

_She's got a smile that heals me  
I don't know why it is  
But I have to laugh when she reveals me_

_She's got a way about her  
I don't know what it is  
But I know that I can't live without her  
Anyway_

"I love you," she said, leaning in to kiss me. My hands found the side of her face, holding her to me, unwilling to let go.

When the band started playing another song, I broke the kiss out of necessity. The pianist needed his bench back. I silently wrapped my hand around hers and led her out to the dance floor.

Halfway through the song, a man bumped into my shoulder. Looking to the right, I saw that it was Aro, the producer.

"Care to switch?" he asked. I saw that he was dancing with Victoria. They'd come together tonight because her husband Riley was unable to fly up here because of a work commitment.

I looked down at Bella. "This is Aro Dwyer, the producer of my film. Do you mind?" She was a little timid having never met this man, but she took his hand and started dancing.

Victoria switched to me, but not before I heard Aro say, "I won't bite," to Bella. She smiled and seemed to relax.

"She's perfect for you," Victoria said, breaking me from my stare. "I was quite shocked that she was not bothered by the scene she saw us film the other day."

"I know she's perfect for me. It's been amazing being back with her, Vic. When I saw her crying out of the corner of my eye when I was kissing you, I thought she was upset by it. But, no, she was wrapped up in the scene. No offense, but I was thinking about her the entire time I was kissing you."

She laughed a hearty laugh. "No offense, but I was thinking of Riley the whole time I was kissing you back. You're a good kisser, by the way. She's a lucky girl."

I smiled, looking over at Bella. She was enjoying herself being spun around the floor with the very debonair Aro.

"What are you going to do when you leave?" she asked. My face fell.

"I'm not," I said.

Her feet paused. "You have to, Edward. You have to go back to LA to finish the film."

"I know that, Victoria," I huffed. "That's it, though. Don't screw up my last movie, by the way," I smirked.

"Edward," she breathed. "You're giving up acting? How could you? What does Bella say about that?"

"She doesn't know. We've had the discussion before, and she got very upset with me. It's my decision to make, though. My mind has been made up since I came back. I can't leave her. There's no way I could have the schedule I've had for the past five years and still be happy. She's where I belong."

"Wow, she really is special, isn't she?"

"She's the one. No doubt in my mind. There never has been a doubt." We both looked over at her, her laughter filtering through the crowd as Aro dipped her. I kissed Victoria's cheek and made my way over to my love to reclaim her.

"Can I cut in?" I asked. As I extended my hand, another hand fell into mine.

"When were you going to ask me to dance?" my mother asked.

"The answer was no anyways," Aro shrugged.

Bella snorted a very unladylike snort and then snorted again when she started laughing harder in embarrassment. Snorts and elegant gowns usually didn't mix, but it was the cutest thing I'd ever seen because it was my Bella.

I rolled my eyes and took my mother's hand, leading her away from Bella and Aro.

"She's perfect for you," mom smiled. I laughed and shook my head. "What?" she asked.

"Victoria said the exact same thing."

"Do you not feel that way about her?" Her face was one of shock or maybe...anger? I couldn't tell.

"No!" I whisper-yelled. "Of course I do, ma! I'm going to fucking marry her!"

She slapped me across the face and then threw her arms around my neck in a hug. "Where did you and your brother pick up such potty mouths? But, you're going to marry her? Really?"

Ugh. Did my mother seriously just slap me in front of 150 people? "Your answer lies with dad. He's just better at hiding his curses in front of you. And, yes, I _have_ to marry her."

She pulled back and put her hand over her heart. "Am I...am I going to be a grandmother?" The grin on her face was growing.

My jaw dropped. "No!" I yelled. Everyone around us turned to stare because of my outburst, including Bella and Aro. Mom's lips formed into a pout. It wasn't that I didn't want that with Bella, but if i didn't squash the idea in mom's head as soon as it sprang up in there, she would be buying those little cotton unitard things with the snaps that babies wore and carseats in every color before they left.

I lowered my mouth to her ear and whispered so everyone would continue with their dancing and ignore us. "I have to marry her because she's meant for me, mom. You don't understand how much I love her. There's nothing more that I want in this world than to be her husband. You had me so that I could find her and make her happy."

She sniffled, holding me closer. "I do understand, Edward. I've been married to your father for 32 years and still love him more each day, however cliché that may sound. The power of your love today, no matter how great, will only be a blip compared to what it will be when you're married as long as your father and I have been." She sighed. "Even though you got your dirty mouth from your father, which I'm going to have a talk with him about, you also inherited how strongly he loves. Carlisle loves me more than I deserve sometimes."

"You deserve it, mom," I smiled, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Emmett and I love you, too."

A tear fell from her eye. "Go to your Bella. I need to dance with my Carlisle." I gave her a hug and strode over to the love of my life.

"Now?" I asked, holding my palm out to them.

Aro looked skeptically at my hand and then placed hers in it. "If you must." He turned to Bella and kissed her free hand. "It's been a pleasure, ma cherie."

"Merci pour la danse, Monsieur Dwyer," she spoke in perfect French. Aro's eyes lit up as did mine at the way her mouth moved when the words rolled off her tongue.

"Belle," Aro whispered almost inaudibly.

"Yes, she is," I replied. Her cheeks flushed crimson. Beautiful, indeed.

I spun her into my arms and we were together again, finally. "Vous parlez français, Mademoiselle Swan?" I asked.

"Un peu," she smiled, holding up her fingers and almost pinching them together. She narrowed her eyes in deep concentration and then spoke the next words slowly. "Je suis allée à Paris il ya six mois."

"You went to Paris six months ago?" I asked, not caring to continue our French, though she was incredibly adorable trying to remember the words.

"Oui," she said easily, smiling. "I went for two weeks after Jake. It was nice to go and clear my head."

I held her closer, trailing my fingers along her bare spine, knowing that she would once again be put into a sad place in her mind thinking about Jake. "You continue to amaze me. First, you're a successful author, then you play piano and sing, and now you know French and have been to my favorite city in the world."

"Paris is _my_ favorite city in the world," she whispered. "It's a different way of life over there. It feels so easy and carefree, like there's nothing to worry about. Everything sounds different and smells different and tastes different. It's overwhelming to the senses, yet inherently relaxing."

I pulled back to look at her face. "I want to go back with you. I want to experience it through you. Paris is an amazing city, but every time I go I'm there for work or I'm renovating my apartment. It hasn't been the way you describe it since the first time I went."

"Emmett told me you have an apartment there."

"I do. I'd like to show it to you some day," I told her. _Maybe on our honeymoon._

Just then, Emmett whistled into the microphone...at least he attempted to whistle. It came out more like spitting. Everyone cringed. "Hello?" he spoke. When nobody really responded, he tapped his finger too hard on the top, causing everyone to cringe again at the loud noise. "Testing 1 - 2 - 3."

"It's on, Emmett," I yelled.

"Oh, sorry," he blushed. He put the mic back up to his mouth. "Hi, everybody!"

Bella giggled, and I shook my head. Emmett's not one for public speaking. Thinking back to my wonderful speech before I sang, though, I really had no room to talk.

"Thanks for coming and helping us celebrate," he continued, pulling the mic away from his mouth and then back toward it until it was a desirable volume. The mouth breathing into it was getting distracting. He looked down at Rosalie in front of him being hugged by her mom and dad. "Rosie, the moment I saw you, I knew I was going to marry you, babe."

She blew him a kiss, and he caught it with his hand and put it in his pocket. I started snickering until Bella slugged me in the chest. "That's cute!" she scolded.

"You're right, dear," I laughed, giving her a kiss on the temple. "I'm sorry."

"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on, and for some reason you love me," he continued. "That's more than I deserve. I'm going to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you in return. Thank you for trusting our feelings and just going for it, Rosie. I love you."

Wow. Talk about hitting the nail on the head. _Thank you for trusting our feelings and just going for it. _I wish I'd have come up with that. Bella turned in my arms and looked up at me. "Thank you," she breathed.

In response, I leaned down and kissed her in my thanks. She pressed further into me by wrapping her arms around my waist, and I groaned.

We heard a throat clear, and we turned. Alice. Of course. Brandon had to learn it from someone.

"Jasper and I are going to cut out a little early," she said. "Brandon had a bad dream and won't calm down for grandma and grandpa."

"Okay, Ali," Bella said, giving her and Jasper a hug.

"We'll be back tomorrow morning to help with breakdown," Jasper said, shaking my hand.

"Sounds great. We'll see you then. Hope the little guy is okay."

"He'll be fine. I'm sure it was dancing dinosaurs again. Freaked the shit out of him the other night. The kid's got an active imagination."

I laughed. Dancing dinosaurs. That was one I never had. Then my face fell. I'd give anything for dancing dinosaurs to be in Bella's dreams instead of what she had endured over the past few weeks.

We walked them to the door and said our final goodbyes. Over the next two hours, people filed out after giving their congratulations to the happy couple. When the last couple left, I stood in the empty space by the kitchen, my tuxedo jacket off and bow tie hanging loosely around my neck with the top three buttons of my shirt undone.

"It just feels wrong leaving all of this stuff out in the kitchen. It's a mess," I said, picking up three crystal plates and putting them in the sink.

"Edward, I have the caterers, the band and a cleaning crew coming tomorrow morning at 8:00. Just leave it be." Bella was standing on the stairs watching me walk around and assess the damage to the house.

"Look at your rug!" I exclaimed. Some jackass had spilled red wine on the rug and had left it there for someone else to clean.

"Edward." I couldn't look up. There was shit all over the floor. This was a black tie event! How could people be so messy when they were wearing gowns and tuxes!

"Edward," she said again. I put my hands on my hips and lifted my head. Her back was to me now. I stared as she looked over her right shoulder down to the floor as her left hand came up and slid the dress off of her shoulder. Time slowed down when her right hand lifted and slid the dress off of her left shoulder. She looked up at me through her eyelashes as the dress slunk down over her body.

Down her lean arms, off of the swell of her hips, over her toned thighs, pooling at her gold stilettos. My eyes raked up her completely naked body. No panties, no bra, just heels. My reattached jaw became unhinged again. Then she swayed her way up the stairs leaving the dress behind on the bottom step and me in shock.

Once she disappeared at the top, my feet stayed rooted in place for only one more second before I was off after her.

I dashed up the stairs two at a time and flung the bedroom door open. The moonlight filtered into the room shining on her nude body...every curve, her shapely legs, her breasts. She was standing at the windows with her back to me and her feet shoulder width apart. The heels she continued to wear defined the muscle in her calves and thighs. I wanted to trail my tongue along that definition. "Do you still want to clean up, Mr. Cullen?" she spoke, exuding pure sex.

"No," I swallowed hard.

"Good."

My feet moved one in front of the other toward her on their own. When my chest met her back, I wrapped my arms around her, sliding my left hand across her breasts and holding on while my right hand trailed down her stomach to her already wet core.

Sinking two fingers inside of her, she gasped and fell into my hold as she wrapped her hands around my neck.

"You're so wet, Bella."

I pinched and rolled her hard nipple between my thumb and my forefinger while I continued to fuck her with my other fingers.

"Yes," she panted. "Only for you."

I used the palm of my hand that was inside of her to pull her ass hard against my dick, which was screaming to be set free of its confines. "Only for you," I growled.

Her walls were tightening around my fingers. "Are you going to come for me?" I hissed in her ear.

She moaned, a moan that went straight to my cock, and then said the one word I did not expect her to say. "No."

"Yeah, you – wait, what?" I asked, pausing my ministrations.

"No," she repeated breathlessly. I slipped my fingers out of her and she turned to face me. Her eyes said it all. Mischief. Seduction. Wanton need. _Oh fuck. _"But you are."

In a flurry of motion, she grabbed my shirt by the front and spun me around until my back was slammed against the glass windows. She was on her knees tugging my shirt out of my pants and unbuckling my belt before I could blink.

"Bella?" I was confused but was still helping her in whatever she was doing by unbuttoning my shirt and pulling it off along with my undershirt. She was so close to coming. There was nothing in this world that I loved more than seeing her face when she was in ecstasy. I wished you could bottle up the feel of her body shaking and arching with passion so I could have it whenever I wanted.

"Yes, Mr. Cullen?" She asked as I toed my shoes off when she was pulling my pants and underwear down to the floor.

"Just Edward," I corrected, kicking the pants across the room.

"Mr. Cullen," she countered just as she grabbed my cock in her hand and squeezed.

Time stopped completely when her tongue darted out and circled the head of my shaft.

"Fuck, Bella," I growled. Her mouth was just as warm as her pussy.

She squeezed harder and ran her hand up and down the length, spreading the wetness she had put on me. "You will get to, Mr. Cullen. But for now, you need some individual attention."

I clenched my eyes shut and threw my hands in my hair as her mouth completely encircled me and then slid down toward the base. What did I ever do right that let me deserve this woman? Here I was, Edward Cullen: Part-Time Playboy to the Stars, getting a blow job from the most gorgeous woman I've ever laid eyes on. And, not just any blow job. _Holy hell. _The best blow job I've ever received. Her head bobbed front to back at the perfect pace. Her mouth was amazingly wet all of the time. Her tongue swirled and applied pressure in the exact places that it should to drive me wild.

Her left hand that had been firmly planted on my ass cheek moved to my hand which had fallen to my side and placed it on the back of her head. _Uuunnngh._ She wanted me to guide her...to fuck her mouth. I combed my fingers through her hair until they rested on the back of her head and then I pulled her to me. Though she was encouraging me to do this act, I would never push her to any kind of limit. The depth she was taking me previously would be the depth I would fuck her mouth now. It would kill me to scare her by going too deep. The ball was in her court...well, shit, now her hand.

She squeezed them, and I twitched in her mouth. The moan that she released sent a shock up my dick into my abdomen, spurring my orgasm.

"Fuck, baby. Bella move, baby. I'm gonna...I'm gonna..." I panted.

Instead of popping off my dick, she plunged it farther into her mouth, and I came. Oh, fuck, did I come. She hummed and squeezed my balls tighter, and I shot another stream down her throat. "Bella," I breathed. "You don't have to do that." As I tried to catch my breath, I looked down at her and saw her looking back up at me through her eyelashes.

"Now you can fuck Bella," she said.

That's all it took. I curled my fingers around her upper arms and pulled her up my body swiftly. My dick was already rock hard again. I crashed my mouth to hers, moulding her dips and curves against my dips and curves and turned her so that her back was against the windows now.

She broke the kiss, gasping for oxygen and turned so that her ass was pressed into my cock. "Fuck me, Edward," she breathed.

Positioning myself behind her, I plunged into her wet heat with no delay.

"Oh, shit!" I hissed, sandwiching her left hand under mine on the window as I held her waist with my right. Bella pressed back against me as I thrust into her, hard and desperate for release.

"Yes!" she gasped. The sound of my skin on her ass sent a rush of desire through me. This was night of firsts for us. I told her I was going to worship her before, and I had every single night. I never let her go down on me even when she tried because I wasn't done with her, yet. And, every other time we had been intimate besides the time in the car, we had made sensual love to each other.

Her legs started to tremble as I pounded into her. Tightening my arm around her waist to make sure she didn't fall, I bent over and kissed all the way up her spine, brushing my lips against the sheen layer of sweat that had formed on her skin. I felt her tightening around me, so I took my other hand that had been on hers and found her core. She moaned when I circled my fingers around her clit.

"Let go," I whispered in her ear. "We're not done, yet."

She moaned again and pushed her heat against me harder. I pressed my fingers against her harder, and felt her muscles clench just as she shattered around me, gasping my name.

"Edward. Don't stop, Edward."

Pulling out of her, I grabbed her hips and spun her around so that she was facing me. In one swift motion, I picked her up, slamming her back against the window with her legs wrapped around my waist again. If there was any chance this glass wouldn't hold, I would hope she would say something. There were no objections, so on I went.

Her pointy stilettos were digging painfully into my ass. I would have two dime-sized bruises on my ass cheeks tomorrow. And, I would wear them with honor.

"Oh fuck, baby," she breathed, throwing her hands over her head to hold onto only God knows what. The slickness of the glass wasn't going to do anything for her.

"We always... seem to... start out... this way..." I grunted between pounding into her. "Why don't... we fucking... end it... this way."

Making sure she was held to me tightly with one arm, I slid my hand up the glass and wound my five fingers together with her ten fingers above her head, holding on for dear life and feeling our sweat mix as one.

"I love you, Bella," I groaned, meeting her eyes in our most intense stare we'd ever shared. This woman was my air and my heart beat. She was my soul and my other half. And, she was mine. "Don't let go...ever."

She crashed her mouth to mine and arched her back away from the glass as her second orgasm ripped through her. This was what I'd needed to see. Her fingers, tightened around mine above our heads, as her walls tightened around my dick, milking me into my own orgasm. I continued to pump into her, feeling our juices together until we fell to the floor in a puddle of sweat and shaky limbs.

I folded her body into mine feeling an instant calming, and she whispered to me, "Never."

* * *

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

****All of the pretty dresses can be found in my profile plus Edward in a tux (one of my favorite photos of The Pretty). Hot damn!****

Lots of things happened in this chapter. Esme met the girls and showed pictures of her sons' willies. We found out some back story to Rosalie. Jake decided to be an ass and try to crash the party. Bella is a pianist/singer and so is Edward. Edward has decided to quit acting and told his mom he's going to marry Bella. And, they had a grand old time there at the end finally finishing what they started.

I want to send out a huge THANK YOU to reader/reviewer Seba nefer for proofing my French in this chapter. It's been years since I've used the language, and she offered to help make sure I got it right. So, snaps to you!

Next chapter is shorter than usual, but I actually love it a whole lot. Now, go review. I hope you all are enjoying reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it.

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have an account because I can't reply if you don't. Also, make sure you have private messages enabled._

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	16. Chapter 16 Pain

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: angst, language, lemons.

* * *

We're officially halfway through the story now. You might want to enjoy the lighthearted parts of this chapter as much as possible. Just sayin'.

* * *

**CHAPTER 16**

**Pain**

Reaching my marker up to the glossy paper, I drew a large "X" through the square under the Sunday column. Another day...gone. Another full week...gone. Four weeks to be exact. Four weeks since Edward had come back to me. Just like that, time had sped on. Time didn't care about how short of it we actually had together. It kept marching on without taking anything but its duty to stay accurate into consideration. _Sigh._ Only five weeks left until _Edward_ was...gone.

Love came easy for the two of us, Edward and I. Nothing else had come easy, but the love did. Life, though, had become infinitely harder over the past nine days when someone hacked into Angela's computer at her photography studio down the block and stole the photos from the reception. To say Angela was devastated and embarrassed would be an understatement.

The photos were still there so she could get them printed, yes, but they were also on every cover of every magazine for the world to see. If the sole purpose was to show the readers the love between Rosalie and Emmett, then all would be fine. But, no. Their purpose was to show how Edward and Victoria were sleeping together because of a simple dance and innocent kiss on the cheek. Or how I was cheating on Edward with his producer Aro because of his delightful banter and dancing skills that were one of the high points of my evening. It didn't rank in my top ten high points because all of those were occupied by Edward, but it may have taken up spot number 11.

These "scandals" as the tabloids called them, proceeded to up the star factor of our relationship tenfold. Instead of my quiet walk into work in the mornings from my car in the back of the store, I now had to push my way through a crowd of camera-wielding paparazzi out for the next picture of me cheating on the man of my dreams. And, instead of a nice quiet lunch with my best friend Alice at the diner, we had to hide in her workroom until I absolutely had to go back to work.

Edward freaked the first time he saw what I was having to put up with each day. _Freaked. _It took nearly an hour to calm him down and stop him from threatening the lives of every photographer that got within ten feet of me. I didn't understand what he was so up in arms about. He'd had to put up with far worse for years.

"_I worry about you,"_ he had said. _"What if something happens, and I'm not there? You're so small."_

That comment earned him a nipple pinch. Was it true that I was small? Yes, I guess so. One bump by a pap did send me soaring into my door one morning with a hollow thud. But, I didn't like how small equaled weak in that sentence. I was a strong woman, dammit. _I am woman...hear me roar_, and all that shit_._ Roar I did. With a kick to the shin and an earful of curses, I sent him running in fear.

The regular photographers didn't bother me, though. All they were after was a picture. They could have a thousand as long as they stayed an acceptable distance away. I signed up for this the moment I told Edward that I knew how this would change my life. This was going to be a part of our lives from here on out.

It was a particular blonde photographer that _did_ actually bother me, and he bothered me to the point of making myself sick over it. James made a reappearance a few days ago and decided he wasn't leaving this time. He had never crossed a line with me again, though – never called me a name like at the premiere or got too close. But he was still _here_. He was _here_ for a reason, and that reason was to cause us trouble. He'd made it his mission in life to make Edward Cullen miserable.

And boy was Edward miserable. Knowing that James was near me had surely increased his blood pressure. I received a phone call from him every free moment he had between scenes. It was always the same.

"_Has he done anything?"_

"_No."_

"_Call me if he gets too close."_

"_I will, Edward."_

I asked if I could see the death threats that James had written the other day, but he refused.

"_Why, Bella?" he asked. "Do you want to make your dreams worse?"_

"_No," I scoffed. "I just think I should know what he said to you."_

"_Absolutely not. This I will not budge on, so give up."_

_I pouted and crossed my arms over my chest._

"_You kept them, though, didn't you?"_

"_Yes," he responded. "Emmett has them."_

_"Why does Emmett have them?"_

"_Just in case...something happens," he whispered._

_My stomach rolled with nausea. "Just in case something _bad_ happens. Something where Emmett would have evidence against James."_

Edward never responded.

The door opened behind me, jingling my new bell that he installed last Friday. I turned quickly, not really knowing what to expect any more. Sometimes it was photographers taking a risk of living to see the next day by coming in my store. Sometimes it was customers. Sometimes it was customers wanting me to sign their copy of the latest shitrag...I mean gossip rag. Sometimes it was one of the girls or guys coming to check on me. This time it was my dad.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey, Bells. Any problems today?"

"No. No problems," I sighed. The men in my life were so protective. That wasn't a bad thing, but it was irritating that every conversation started out with a form of that one question.

"Good. I know you told me not to bother with it, but I've put an extra patrol out on this street. Garrett's been keeping his eye on them. I don't trust these goons."

"Goons?" I snickered. "They're just doing their job, dad. However invasive or intrusive, they have backed off a little. Nobody has come back in since I told them to stop."

"They better not be." He turned around and glared out the window at the five men that had set up camp outside my front window, including James. "I'm glad to see that you are parking in front now."

"It makes me more comfortable." Dad did not and would not know about James' threats. He also did not know about Jake. The last thing we needed was a media circus involving me and my ex.

"What do they do all day?" he asked.

"Mostly stand around just like that unless it's raining. Sometimes they get bored and take a photo of me shelving books, helping customers or reading. One day someone brought a deck of cards. They're just waiting for Edward or Emmett or Aro, my secret lover, to show up to get a good photo. I try to ignore them as best I can."

I turned my head and looked outside. The fire and fury in James' eyes was burning me. He didn't like that I was talking to a police officer. I wondered if he knew this was my father.

Charlie walked over to where I was and picked up the stack of books I was going through to peruse the titles.

"Billy's having another bonfire tonight. The weather is supposed to be nice. You interested in coming?"

My face lit up. "What time?"

"Seven."

I narrowed my eyes. "Who's all coming?"

He smiled. "Billy, Sue, Harry's finally cleared to leave the house, Leah, Sam, Emily, Quil, Claire."

"And?" I prodded.

He shook his head. "That's it. A certain pain in the ass said he was busy tonight."

"We'll be there," I nodded. "You can finally meet Edward since you were such a party pooper and wouldn't go to Rosalie's reception."

"You know me and suits, Bells. I feel claustrophobic. All you had to do was make it a fish fry and let me wear my jeans and bring a case of Vitamin R, and I'd have been there in a heartbeat."

"Ahhh, yes. Nothing screams elegant wedding like jeans, cases of beer and fish in a bag."

"That's my kind of wedding," he laughed. I instantly put my shield up, prepared for what was inevitable. Just as expected, his smile faded as his laughter died out. That always happened when he thought of mom.

Over the years I'd learned what triggered a memory of her: associating him with a wedding, peasant skirts that you could always find her wearing, the smell of her perfume, slow songs, car accidents, the hospital. The list went on. But, I'd learned how to bring him out of it. He needed a distraction.

"Will you help me carry that box?" I asked, pointing to the one by his feet. "It's too heavy."

"Where do you want it?"

"Children's."

We shelved the new stock for the next fifteen minutes, and then it was time for him to go.

"I'll call Billy and tell him to expect two more so that he'll bring enough of the fish." He rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. "This sure will be interesting tonight. It's the first time you've ever shown up with someone other than Jake."

Interesting it sure would be. My father and Edward. Billy and Edward. Edward and Jake's friends. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. When dad left, snarling at the photographers of course, I called Edward and went to the back of the store for privacy.

The call went to his voicemail.

"Hey, baby. I wanted you to know that dad just stopped by and invited me to a bonfire out in La Push tonight. It's at seven. I told him that you and I would go. I hope that's alright? It will give you a chance to meet him. I know you're nervous, but it's all good. He'll love you. Just give me a call when you get the chance. Hope your day is going well. I love you. Talk to you soon."

Fifteen minutes later he called back. There was no "Hey, Bella," or "Hello, gorgeous," or anything that I had grown to love when I answered my phone. All I got was, "Is Jake going to be there?"

I huffed. "No."

"Then I'd be happy to go."

"And if Jake _was_ going to be there?"

"You and I would be enjoying a nice quiet evening at home with a good book."

"You are aware that my father, the chief of police, Sir Carrier of Glock, will be there, right?"

"Doesn't matter. Jake could have hurt you that night he came over. I don't want him anywhere near you even if I'm there or your father is there. I can't take that chance."

I sighed. "I know. If he was going to be there tonight, we wouldn't have been going. I can't take that chance with _you_. He threatened _you_ remember?"

"Remember that you shouldn't worry about me?" he said.

"But, I do anyways."

"If you can worry about me, then I can worry about you, okay?"

"I guess it's only fair."

He took a deep breath. "I guess tonight's the night. Gonna meet the parent."

My throat strained. _Parent._ One. Not two.

"Are you sure he's going to love me?" he continued, unaware of my pain.

"Yeah, he'll love you," I mumbled. Jesus, why did that hurt so much when he said it? He didn't say it to be mean. He didn't possess it in him to be mean. _Put up your shield, Bella. Shield out the pain like you always do._

"Bella, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. A customer just came in," I lied. "I better go."

He paused before speaking. "Okay. I'll see you at home at 6:30?"

"That's fine."

"I love you. You know that, don't you?" he asked.

"I know you do, Edward," I relaxed. "I love you, too. I'll see you tonight."

When I closed at six, only three photographers remained outside. Guess I was just boring enough for two of them to give up.

"What are you doing tonight?" James asked, getting in my face with the lens the very second my toe hit the sidewalk.

"None of your fucking business," I growled before pushing past him. My car was only two vehicles away. Fifteen more feet and I'd be safe inside with the doors locked. That's when I felt it.

The toe of his tennis shoe scraped down my heel. It happened too quickly for me to stop. I was stumbling, tripping, falling to the ground with nothing to grab onto but air. My palms skidded across the concrete painfully until the momentum of my body slowed to a stop. The entire surface of my hands was of fire as my skin tore in hundreds of tiny scratches. I cried out at the automatic sting of the tiny rocks and dirt contaminating my wounds.

I heard the savage clicking of the cameras going around me as the three paparazzi members recorded this humiliation for the world to see. I turned my face away from them and curtained my hair around my eyes as a tear streamed down my cheek. Being embarrassed was not the cause for my tears. Growing up I'd endured enough embarrassment through my uncoordinated years to not be affected that much by things like this any more. The cause of my crying was because James would stop at nothing to make us miserable. Harassment and threats had now become physical harm, no matter how minor.

"Edward," I sniffled. "I need you."

"Oomph." _Thud. Scamper._

"What the hell!" _Thud. Scamper._

"Lay a fucking hand on me, and they're published."

I twirled my head around to see Edward's back in front of me in a protective stance and two photographers running down the sidewalk. "I told you to stay away from her," Edward growled.

"I told you that you endure your punishment for fucking Tanya or the world finds out what you did."

"Is there a problem here, men?" James turned allowing me to see Garrett stepping out of his light blue Forks Police car with his hand on his holstered weapon. "Bella? Is this man to blame for why you're on the ground?" He was pointing at James.

Edward's life was in my hands. My bloodied, stinging hands. If I turned James in, there would be no stopping him from releasing the photos to the public as soon as he got out of jail. If I turned James in, there would be no telling if he would go through with whatever his plans were in the death threats. I couldn't do that to Edward no matter how much justice I wanted towards James.

"It was an accident, Garrett," I answered as strongly as I could. "I tripped over my own two feet. These two men were just coming to help me."

Garrett suspected something was up, as any good police officer would by taking a look at how Edward was standing in front of me, but without just cause he couldn't do anything. He was hesitant to leave. I could see it in his eyes. "Okay, Bella. Call the station if you need us for anything. I mean it. Anything." As he walked away I heard radio chatter from his hip but couldn't understand anything other than he was responding to the scene.

"Smart girl," James said when Garrett got in his cruiser and turned on his lights and siren. He strolled closer to Edward, tilting his head to look at me behind him on the ground. "Don't you like being on _top_, Bella?"

My breath caught in my throat. _Oh, God. He couldn't have.  
_

"No you fucking didn't!" Edward roared, taking a step forward.

James shrugged his shoulders. "You should avoid public places, say like a _car_, when you feel like a fuck, Edward. You just never know where we may be hiding," he laughed menacingly.

Everything started to spin out of control. James had pictures of us having sex in my car. He had more blackmail against Edward. This just got so much worse because Edward would do anything to protect me.

Edward's fists were shaking at his sides. He was going to punch him. I had to do something before it was too late. Getting up off the ground as quickly as I could, I wrapped my hands painfully around Edward's right fist to try to snap him out of his rage. We were both furious. There was no denying that. But he absolutely could not retaliate. James was too dangerous.

If there was anything that could work at accomplishing this task, it would be my fear and my pleading.

"Edward," I whispered. "Get me out of here, please."

The two men stared each other down, waiting for the other to make the first move. All it would take would be someone to twitch, and the first punch would be thrown.

"Baby, please. I'm scared."

His fist loosened then and rotated so that his fingers could intertwine with my own. "Let's go." His wrist spun me as we turned to walk away so that he was between me and James the entire time. Taking the keys, he put me in the passenger seat and we left.

Silently staring down at his hands tight around the steering wheel, he gasped. Still holding it with his left, he pulled his right hand away from the wheel and flipped it back and forth several times.

"Your blood is on my hands," he said. There was an underlying meaning to that. I knew Edward. However literal the statement could be taken, he meant that he was at fault for all of my troubles.

"The blood is temporary," I told him. "Your _life_ was in mine."

He reached over to take my wrist so that he could examine my scrapes.

"Are you in pain?" he asked.

"My hands hurt, but I'll be fine."

"Do you have peroxide at the house? Do we need to stop at the store to get some?" He was so upset by this and was now determined to put me back together again as he had before when I dropped the glass bowl in the kitchen and the glass shards dug into my leg.

"I don't think I have any. I've got rubbing alcohol, but that would burn too much." We both grimaced thinking about how much that would hurt with the amount of scratches I had on my palms.

We sat in silence for a minute before he spoke. "I'm sorry he has pictures of us. It never crossed my mind with where we were parked."

I sighed. "Don't blame yourself for this. I initiated the sex. If anyone is to blame, it is me. I am sorry that I've put you in this position again."

"Don't ever apologize for what we have, Bella."

"I'm not apologizing for what we shared in the car that day. I'm just apologizing that once again he has photos of you and a woman."

"He has photos of me and you, not me and a woman. And, if there is one thing I can be happy about, it is that you and I were fully clothed. He doesn't have a nude photo of you. He didn't see you naked."

I hadn't thought about that. We never took off our clothes.

"That's the only thing keeping me sane right now. Your body is only for me to see." Leaning across the console, he kissed my temple as he pulled into the grocery store parking lot.

Before we even got to the front door, a group of high school girls descended on him for autographs from nowhere. Did they just wait around? I guess it was common knowledge that he was here filming a movie. There was no way not to know. It was in all of the area newspapers all the way to Seattle.

"I love you!" they all shrieked in unison.

"Uh huh," he mumbled, while signing their school notebooks and the back of a cellphone with a sharpie one of them provided.

The owner of the phone handed it to me. "Will you take our picture?"

Edward grumbled. "I'm sorry, but we're in a hurry." He went to take my arm to escort me inside the store, but I pulled back.

"I'm not dying, Edward. Get in a damn photo with them."

He rolled his eyes while the five girls huddled around him. One of them put her hand on his chest, and I quirked my eyebrow at her.

"Sorry," she mumbled. It was innocent. I wanted to touch him, too.

"Say cheese!" I exclaimed.

They all hammed it up for the photo, so excited to be near him. Edward frowned. _Way to ruin the picture, grump. _He grabbed my arm as soon as I handed the phone back to the girl.

"I was just as infatuated with you, you know," I smirked as we walked past the checkout lanes and turned right.

"No you weren't," he grumbled. He had no idea where he was going, he was just walking.

I laughed. "First, yes I was. Second, peroxide is not in the produce section, Edward." He stopped and turned us to go back the other way.

Finding the medicine aisle on the other end of the store, he bent over and grabbed the biggest brown bottle of peroxide they sold.

"The small one will do," I said.

"I don't do small."

"You do me," I laughed. "I'm small." That got him to crack a smile. _Finally._ If there was one thing I was good at, it was distracting people until they felt better. I may be just as torn up inside, but it pained me more seeing those that I loved troubled. James scared the shit out of me. He frightened me to my core. But, I couldn't stand to see Edward upset. My feelings always came in second behind everybody else.

"What do you mean that you were just as infatuated with me?" he asked out of nowhere.

I blushed. "What did you expect? I could barely contain myself that Edward _Freaking_ Cullen was outside my bookstore. I stared at you for the longest time before I decided to save you. And then, when you were standing in the store, I wanted to jump you. Swear to God."

"Maybe I should rethink you and me then," he said, taking a step toward me. "How can I trust that you're in love with the man and not the actor?"

"How can I trust that you're in love with the bookstore owner and not the author?" I countered. I took a step, closing the distance between us even more.

He took another step forward and leaned into my ear so the little old lady comparing the different kinds of Ben-Gay wouldn't hear. "I thought you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen the moment I saw your fierce eyes and your long hair whipping in the wind. You were straight out of a dream. I can admit now that I would have gladly let you jump me if you had tried."

His words sparked a question in me. "Would you change anything about us if you could?" I asked.

He thought about that. "No. Not anything that involves only us anyways. Making love to you that first night I came back was the perfect time. You were injured and hungover the first time we tried. It probably would have been sloppy. If we had gotten to the second time, we would always associate it with me leaving. And, after the club, I would have fucked you not made love to you. You deserved more than that."

_Wow._ "I love you," I breathed, and then I kissed him for all the hemorrhoid ointments and anti-itch powders to see.

Standing in the checkout lane, I grinned at the magazine that was glaring back at me and pulled it out.

"Edward!" I admonished playfully. "I cannot believe you're having a baby with Victoria and me at the same time! Have some control, man! Keep it in your pants!"

He nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry. It must have been that night we had the threesome. I thought I only jizzed in _you_. My bad."

"Ahhh, yes," I sighed, replacing it on the rack. "That must have been it. How could I forget about the threesome?"

Edward pulled out the magazine next to the one I had held up and put it in my face. "How could you, Bella? My brother? I want a paternity test when you pop that kid out. I knew I couldn't trust you when you were alone with Emmett for a whole week."

I grabbed the next one. "It won't be either of yours. It's Aro's baby. See? We did it on the dance floor in front of everybody. You just didn't notice."

He picked up the final magazine. "Angelina kicked Brad out. I'm sure you slept with him, too. You can never trust a woman."

I laughed, and then took it out of his hands to put it on the belt to be included with the peroxide. Now that was juicy news.

"I can't believe she kicked him out. All of those kids..." I said, shaking my head.

Edward smirked and muttered, "You can believe that after all the shit on the other magazines."

We looked up to see the checkout boy standing there in shock having heard that entire conversation from threesomes to jizz to me breaking up Angelina and Brad. "Four dollars and seven...seventy-seven cents," he stuttered. Edward paid with the cash he had in his pocket, and we both walked out the door in a fit of giggles.

"Scarred for life," I laughed. "Did you just say 'I thought I only jizzed in _you_' in front of somebody else? Dear God, that poor kid."

_Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.  
_

"Dammit!" I growled. Spinning around expecting to see James, I came face to face with an old acquaintance.

"Seth? Seth Jared?"

"Bella!" he exclaimed, giving me an excited hug.

Edward rushed around the car and unwrapped his arms from around my neck. "Back off!"

"Whoa! Sorry, Edward. A photo of you and some girls was released on Twitter a few minutes ago. I just thought it was you at the store, but I'm so happy to see Bella, too. It's like seeing old friends again."

"No, it isn't," he countered. "You're paparazzi. Back off, or I'll call the police."

"Okay," Seth said, taking a few steps back.

A familiar red BMW pulled up in the spot next to me and came to an abrupt stop. Jumping out of the car was Emmett and Rosalie.

"That's him!" Emmett yelled, pointing at Seth. "Thank goodness you needed tampons, Rosie. This kid is cruisin' for a bruisin'."

"That's who?" I asked. I was so confused.

"The photographer that was hiding and taking your picture while Edward was in LA. Thought I scared you away, little man? Coming back for a beating?" He took a step toward Seth as he clenched his fists at his sides. Edward took a step toward Seth, too, and I grabbed his arm to stop him. Rosalie was doing the same thing with Emmett.

"Hey, hey!" Seth cautioned, staggering backwards. "I have my rights."

I was paranoid for days and frightened to step outside because of Seth? All that time it had been him?

"You were the one? Do you realize how scared I was? I thought you worked for People? How were your photos in all of the magazines?" I rambled.

"Exactly. I _worked_ for People. Past tense." He paused. "They fired me."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well...because of you."

"Excuse me?" Edward interjected. He took the words right out of my mouth. "How could you get fired over Bella? What the hell did she ever do to you?"

Seth tried digging the toe of his shoe into the asphalt parking lot. "The interviewer I was with that day saw that I was talking to you. When she asked me what was said, I refused to say, Bella. I told you I wouldn't, and I didn't. She went back to the office and spoke with my superior. He demanded I tell them what you both said, but I refused again. I was fired on the spot."

"Oh, Seth," I sighed. Thinking back to that day, it wouldn't have been a big deal for him to print what I'd said. Compared to what was being run now, me saying that Edward wasn't the bad guy he thought him to be would have been flattering.

"But you're still a photographer?" Edward asked.

"A man's got to make money somehow, Edward," he said. "I got hired on with an agency, and they immediately sent me up here to take photos of you, Bella. I absolutely hated it. Promise I did. I can spot a good person, and you're one. You didn't deserve to be ambushed by me. That's why I stayed back. If I'd have known you were scared, I would have revealed myself."

"That would have been nice, Seth. I was afraid it was James the whole time." As soon as the last word left my lips, I threw my hand over my mouth. _Shit. _I should not have said that.

"James?" Seth asked. "The blonde guy?"

"You know him?" Emmett asked, perking up.

"Yeah, we've been in the same places a couple of times. I was the only one up here for a week or so. Then I had to go back to LA to cover more interesting things. No offense, Bella. There's just not a whole lot to do around this town. When I returned last week after the reception photos leaked, I decided to focus on the filming locations. He's been there a few times but usually he's off somewhere else."

"My bookstore," I added.

"Figured," he replied. "We have about four places we hang out in this town. Only two of them are guaranteed shots, though – the set and your store. Why are you afraid of him?"

"No reason," Edward answer brusquely. "We've got to get going."

Edward took my arm and moved me toward the passenger side. "It was good seeing you again, Bella!" Seth exclaimed as the door shut. I turned my head as we pulled out of the parking lot just in time to see Emmett lunge his upper body at Seth, making him cringe in fear. "Emmett, leave the kid alone," I murmured.

Turning back to Edward, I said, "He's different than them. You know he is."

It was really quiet, almost inaudible, but I swear I heard him say, "I know."

After cleaning my hands in the bathroom with the peroxide when we got home, I walked into my closet to put on the warmer clothes I was going to wear for the evening. I'd had something milling in my mind for a while, but I hadn't found the right time to ask.

"Why did you show up at the store? Weren't you going to meet me here?" I asked as I buttoned up my red plaid shirt.

Edward walked into the closet and leaned on the door frame while I changed into a pair of jeans. "We finished earlier than planned. I asked Marcus to drop me off because something just felt off. You seemed sad, and I had a funny feeling. I can't explain to you how relieved I am that I got there when I did. What if I hadn't decided to come to the store?" His voice dropped to almost a whisper at the end.

I slid my hands around his waist and rested my head on his chest. "You did, Edward. Don't worry about the what ifs. Please, baby. Let's just try to have a good time tonight." He was pulling himself down again. I shouldn't have even asked the question. All it accomplished was bringing the events back into the forefront when I'd been so good at making him forget about them.

He hugged me tighter and said, "Alright."

Bending down, I picked up my red rain boots and slid them over my jeans.

"Is it supposed to be raining?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Is there a flood?"

"Nope."

"Does the ocean freak out and rush up the beach without any warning?"

"Nope."

"Then why are you wearing rubber boots that almost go up to your knees?"

"Because they're cute."

"Good enough reason for me. It's time for me to meet your dad."

He took my hand gingerly to avoid causing me any more pain, and we headed for the door, ready to meet Chief Swan for the first time as a couple. _Lord, please let this go well._

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**** Bella's outfit that she'll wear to the bonfire can be found in my profile since she's already wearing it. **  
**

Poor Bella. Welcome to celebrity status, huh? Think she can handle it? What about Edward? He seems a tad tense.

You found out what a selfless person Bella is in this chapter. She's always trying to make other people feel better when she hurts just as much as them. That doesn't seem right, does it? James was pretty mean, too, when he tripped her. But, Edward was there to save her when she called for him again. Do some of you feel a little better knowing that it was Seth that was taking her picture that entire time? Thought so. There were several of you worried.

**Reviews are to me, like chapter updates are to you. I rush off to read them when that email pops up on my phone. I can be having a bad day, and as soon as I hear that little tone on my phone, I internally (sometimes out loud) squee in happiness that someone has either reviewed, favorited or put my story on alerts.**

**I had someone comment that they were surprised I only had 215 reviews with 21,000 hits on my story. The number of reviews I get doesn't matter to me. I can shrug about it because I have amazing, loyal reviewers. I love all of you for taking a few minutes to tell me how you're feeling. Even if you're upset, incredibly blissed out or turned on, I get happy because I've been able to do that with my characters. Now, go review and make me happy! :)**

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**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	17. Chapter 17 I Will Live

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language, violence**, lemons.

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**A new song added this chapter****! Check it out: ****http://www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

**See ya at the bottom...****with a hug.  
**

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**CHAPTER 17**

**I Will Live**

Edward was nervous...like, puke all over my pretty car nervous. He wasn't hiding anything, which was odd considering his profession.

I could tell he was nervous by the way he was fidgeting with the seatbelt strap. Pull it out and let it snap against his chest. Pull it out again, run his thumb back and forth underneath of it a couple of times and let it snap against his chest. Pull it out, fold it accordion-style as many times as he could before it wouldn't pull out anymore and let it snap against his chest. His record was 27 folds. I think his goal was 30.

Every minute or so he would fuss with his hair and then flatten it back down before messing it up again. Then his leg would start bouncing rapidly before he'd have to physically stop it with his hands, which were shaking by the way. That was a new nervous tick for him. Now he was twirling my half-empty bottle of water in his fingers. _Slosh. Slosh. Slosh._

"Edward. Stop it."

His face snapped over to me. "Huh?" Sheer panic had taken over every one of his features.

"Stop fidgeting." I reached across the console and took his left hand in mine carefully to avoid irritating the scratches from my fall. Unable to perform his nervous tendencies, he was lost and scared and even shakier than before. I huffed. "Carry on." I let go of his hand, and it instantly went into his hair. My eyes rolled so far into the back of my head it hurt.

"You really don't need to be nervous. I promise that he will love you. There is no reason for him not to."

"I yelled at him on the phone." He was referring to when dad was laughing at me when I told him I was dating Edward Cullen, the famous actor. A flood of excitement washed over me thinking about how fierce he was before I squashed it down. No time for that.

"And, he deserved it. He knew he deserved it. That's why he apologized. Please don't worry about that."

He blew his cheeks up and slowly released the air between them through a tiny slit in his lips for what seemed like ages and with what was probably the most annoying noise I'd ever heard. He sounded like a deflating tire. _Thirty-six seconds. Thirty-seven seconds. Thirty-eight seconds._ "Good God, Edward! Take a breath! You're gonna pass out!" He drew in air loudly and then blinked his eyes excessively. I was right.

"What's that?" he asked all of a sudden, leaning forward and focusing in on the road in front of us. I turned my head back and saw a police car in front of us with its lights on. An officer was outside the vehicle with her hands up to slow me down. I stopped when I got to her and realized who it was.

Rolling down my window, I asked, "What's going on, Lauren?"

"Hey, Bella. Motorcycle accident around the curve. Go slow. There are a lot of people walking around, and it's getting dark." This is what Garrett had been radioed about when he left us with James on the sidewalk.

"What happened?"

"A witness said the victim lost control going around the turn and hit a tree. He was going too fast." A gruesome scene flashed through my mind, and I quickly batted it away.

"Hit a tree? Is he...dead?" Edward asked.

"Yeah. No helmet. No chance of survival. He was dead before the first officer even got to the scene. You can only hope it was instant."

_Instant. _A word that had been repeated to me over and over again by police officers and doctors. But, they all lied. Death was never instant.

"Anybody I would know?" I asked. What life had been lost? Whose family would hang a stocking out of habit this Christmas but not fill it with presents? Whose mother would cry herself to sleep every night until she was numb?

"License said he was from Seattle. Who knows where he was going. It's pretty late to be out here all the way from there."

I nodded. It was odd how I almost felt relieved that I wouldn't know the victim. Was that sick?

"Your dad is up there. I wouldn't bother him, though. He's got his hands full."

"I wouldn't dream of it," I said. Dad was working now, doing what he was born to do. He was born to help people when they needed it and born to try to find answers to things that had gone wrong.

A car was coming up behind me, so I thanked Lauren for the warning and pulled forward. My eyes were glued to the windshield in front of me as we passed the ambulance, fire trucks and police cars. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Edward was looking over toward the mass of people that stood off the side of the road. I couldn't will myself to look. I'd seen it before. Death and blood. Shredded trees and warped metal.

When we cleared the mess, I let go of the breath I'd been holding.

"I guess I'm not going to be meeting your dad tonight," Edward whispered. His voice was laced with sadness.

"I don't think so," I confirmed.

"I'd rather have met your dad and had him hate me than have had that happen to that man."

"I know you do." There were two options now. We could continue forward and go to the bonfire sans my father, or we could turn around and go back to the house by driving through the accident again.

"We might as well try to salvage the evening and have a little fun," Edward said, making up my mind for me, even though that's what I was going to choose. I didn't know if I could be strong enough to go through that again without at least one tear.

"You still want to go to the bonfire?" I asked.

"Sure. You said you wanted me to meet Billy, too." He seemed more at ease; more willing to take on what was ahead.

Ten minutes later I pulled my car into the parking lot. We were late. The party was well underway. First there was James. Then there was our detour to the grocery store. Add in the accident, and we were about 45 minutes past when it started. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the car that was in the lot.

"Noooo," I whispered.

"What?" Edward asked. He was looking around trying to find out what troubled me. I pointed my finger at a Volkswagen Rabbit as we drove by it. "Don't tell me..." he groaned.

"Okay, I won't then," I replied quietly.

His head fell into his hands as I pulled into a spot. "I can't let you be near Jake, Bella. I don't trust him."

"Dad said he wasn't going to be here," I muttered to myself more than Edward. "He wouldn't lie about that. I wonder if Jake found out that we were coming."

_Tap. Tap. Tap._ Three quick raps on my window jolted me almost out of my seat. Holding my chest, I looked out to see Billy standing there smiling.

"Come on!" he yelled. "What are you waiting for?!"

Edward grabbed my arm. "Bella..." He was pleading with me not to get out of the car.

Another decision to make. Would Jake attempt something in front of his own father if my dad wasn't there? Could I trust him enough to not try to hurt Edward when there were others around? I had no idea if I could.

"Come on!" Billy yelled again, motioning me out of the car.

I turned back to Edward. This was going to upset him. "Come on," I whispered. He groaned but unbuckled his seatbelt. As soon as I stepped out of the car, Billy wrapped me up in one of his hugs.

"It's always great to see you, Bells," he said. "I haven't seen you since we were at the hospital."

Edward's hand rested on my lower back in a comforting if not protective gesture as soon as Billy let go. "Billy, this is Edward, my boyfriend. Edward, this is Billy Black." The two men shook hands stiffly.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Black," Edward said. "Bella speaks very highly of you."

"Bella has never spoken to me of you," Billy replied. I blushed and smacked his arm.

"I haven't seen you since the hospital, remember?"

"Right," he muttered. Then he focused back on Edward and narrowed his eyes. "You're that actor, huh?"

"Yes, I'm that actor."

"From that one movie?"

"Probably?" Edward answered slowly, in the form of a question. How do you answer something like that?

"Did you know that I consider myself another father to Bella?"

"She mentioned something like that." My eyes glanced down to their hands. They were still shaking. _Men._

"Are you treating Bella with respect?" _Fuck. Shit. Son of a bitch_. _Don't say what I know you want to say, Edward. Do not say it._

"Yes, sir. I was raised by a good woman that taught me how to treat a lady." _Whew. _That worked. I would have to give him a kiss for not saying something to the effect of, "Yes, unlike that mother fucking, cock sucking, no-good son of yours."

They finally dropped hands. "Let's go. I'll make you two some plates," Billy said.

Edward wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me tightly to him as we walked through the sand toward the bonfire. I saw _him_ before he saw me. _She_ saw Edward before I saw her. "Jessica," I grumbled.

"Do you think they have any more fun surprises in store for us?" he whispered in my ear.

"I'm sure they do," I answered. We avoided the area that Jake and Jessica and his friends sat and we would for the rest of the night if I could help it. Billy handed Edward and I our plates with the cooked fish on it so that we could load it up with other items. When I turned around, it hit me that we didn't have any chairs to sit in. Dad always brought one for me. I scanned the sand and found two coolers.

"Looks like we're going to have sit on coolers. I didn't think about chairs."

Edward shrugged. "Whatever. That works for me."

We plopped down on two that were next to each other and talked amongst ourselves in what was the most uncomfortable bonfire I'd ever attended. It didn't go unnoticed how Jessica kept staring at Edward or how she had unbuttoned the top three buttons of her shirt to expose her nickle and dime store boob job. She looked like someone had superglued the silicone implants onto her chest and painted them to match her skin tone, which was orange by the way. Why would anybody pay to see her strip? And, why would those have appealed to Jake?

It also would have been hard not to see Jake glaring at us while talking to Sam and Quil. Taking another bite of fish, I saw a shadow approach.

"Hello, I'm Sue Clearwater."

Harry walked up behind her. "And, I'm Harry."

Edward put his plate on the cooler as he stood up to greet them. "I'm Edward. It's nice to meet you," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Fantastic actually. Dr. Cullen is your father, right?"

"Yes, sir. He is."

Sue chimed in. "We want to thank you for calling him to do the surgery. I can't imagine my life without this man. Your father helped save his life." Her eyes were glistening in the firelight.

"It really was not a problem. Bella was incredibly upset about your heart attack. I felt I needed to do what I could. She obviously thinks a great deal of you."

"We think a great deal of her, too," Harry said. He bent down gingerly and kissed the top of my head.

"Get up," an irritated voice said to my right, startling me. Jake stood there with his arms crossed over his chest. "That's my cooler. Move."

I stood and stepped toward Edward, just as Billy turned up the stereo when the piano melody started at the beginning of "I Will Survive." Edward positioned himself so that I was now on his left side with him between Jake and I. This concerned me because I knew Jake wouldn't hurt me, but I knew that Edward wouldn't have it any other way.

"It's been a pleasure meeting you," Edward smiled tightly, shaking their hands. "I'm so happy that my father was able to help."

"Thank you, again," Sue repeated. "You saved his life just as much as your father and Charlie did."

"No, please. I don't belong in that list."

I heard a snicker on the other side of Edward. _Bastard._

When they all walked away, Harry sat down in his chair, but Sue stayed standing to dance in front of him holding his hands during the first verse. The others stood and started dancing around, too, and singing.

This was not an unusual thing to see this group turning this into a dance party. Every bonfire had a theme song it seemed. Last time we were serenaded by Bryan Adams and the air band. This time it was Gloria Gaynor.

Everyone was singing the chorus extra loud and pointing to Harry when they sang "I will survive!" He had a huge grin on his face and was pointing energetically at himself at the same time. These people. I swear they never listened to the lyrics. It was funny none the less to see everyone so relaxed.

Edward stiffened beside me. "The lyrics," he whispered.

Jesus, did _I_ ever listen to the lyrics? Before I could think too much about how ironic they were to my situation with Jake, Billy grabbed my hand as he danced by and pulled me out as the second verse was getting ready to start.

_It took all the strength I had not to fall apart  
Kept trying hard to mend the pieces of my broken heart  
And I spent oh so many nights just feeling sorry for myself  
I used to cry but now I hold my head up high  
_

_And you see me somebody new  
I'm not that chained up little person still in love with you  
And so you felt like dropping in and just expect me to be free  
But now I'm saving all my loving for someone who's loving me_

_Go on now go walk out the door  
Just turn around now 'cause you're not welcome anymore  
Weren't you the one who tried to break me with goodbye?  
Did you think I'd crumble?  
Did you think I'd lay down and die?  
_

_Oh no, not I  
I will survive  
Oh as long as i know how to love I know I will stay alive  
I've got all my life to live  
I've got all my love to give  
And I'll survive  
I will survive_

Billy had me laughing in no time as he twirled me around the fire. Mid-spin, my eyes caught a female standing awfully close to Edward. I tried to slow him down, but he kept going. In a flash, Edward was out of my view. The flames were blocking him now. I had to look ridiculous. My head was bobbing from left to right trying to see who was standing next to him. Then I saw Jake. He was on his feet now, glaring in the direction that I was trying to see. _Shit! _He was moving. He was headed toward Edward. I squirmed out of Billy's arms and ran around the fire seeing with my own eyes what I had suspected.

Not having any time to think this through, I launched myself across the sand and tackled Jessica to the ground, effectively ripping her whore claw off of Edward's chest.

Jesus, this woman could shriek. She was acting like I was killing her when all I was doing was sitting on her stomach and preventing her from getting up. Her Cheetos-colored legs were thrashing around behind me trying to get leverage, but she was fucking crazy if she thought she could fight me off. Then, all of a sudden, her claws came up and drew my left hand into her mouth. I was too shocked to stop what she was about to do.

"Ouch!" I screamed. The bitch bit my hand just hard enough to make it hurt but not hard enough to draw blood. Pulling my right hand back, I swung it forward and smacked the shit out of her. I put six months of anger and revenge into that slap. And, it felt fucking great.

"You bitch!" I screamed while I grabbed the front of her shirt and pulled her face up to mine. "He's mine! You aren't getting this one!" A rage I had never experienced had taken over sweet, innocent Isabella Swan. My arm arched back again ready to administer another blow, but it was stopped in the air by two strong hands. Looking up, I saw Edward was holding onto my wrist in shock. From the look on his face he was either about to laugh hysterically or fuck my brains out. My eyebrow raised at the panty-poofing prospect of the latter.

Then my head was fucking jerked to the left. Hard. My neck popped as it was jolted awkwardly to the side, and my squirming body was being dragged away in the next second. I was holding onto the thick wrist of the person that was dragging me by my hair trying to alleviate some of the pain of having my head pulled on like the handle of a wagon.

"You're the bitch!" Jake spat venom. Then he yanked harder.

"Ouch, Jake! That hurts!" I screamed. He was pulling so hard, it felt like my hair was being ripped out in thick chunks. It was excruciating. This couldn't be happening.

"Let go of her!" a booming voice sounded near me.

Jake stopped abruptly, allowing the knot of my hair around his palm to untangle, and my upper body fell to the beach roughly. "Ow," I winced. What a fucking day. Not only did my hands hurt, but now my neck and head hurt.

Shadows danced around my body as sand was kicked up in my face and into my mouth. A darkness in the shape of an arm blocked the light of the fire, and I snapped my head up to see Jake's fist just miss Edward's face when he dodged out of the way. Jake stumbled from the force he put behind it, and Edward grabbed the collar of his shirt to throw him toward Sam and Quil who grabbed him and held him back.

Edward scooped me up in his arms instantly and held me close to his chest. "Baby, are you okay?" he panted.

"Uh huh," I whimpered. My lip was quivering. I was trying so hard not to cry. He pulled his phone out and tried to dial 911, but he had no service.

"Does anybody's fucking cell phone work?!" he growled. He was out of breath from the adrenaline.

"Now wait a second," Sam said, struggling with Jake. "Bella attacked Jessica first."

"Jessica deserved what she got!" Edward fumed. "Bella's head was almost ripped off of her goddamn shoulders! You can't stand there and tell me that what Bella did to Jessica, AFTER JESSICA BIT HER, at all equals what Jake just did to her!"

"Use mine," I heard whispered behind us. "I have one bar."

Edward turned and took the cell phone from Billy. _Billy?! _Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have thought that Jacob's own father would aid in him being arrested. His eyes were sad as he looked at me. This was so painful, and it had nothing to do with my actual pain. "Billy," I sighed, but he shook his head and looked down.

"My name is Edward Cullen. I'm calling to report an assault," he spoke into the phone. "Yes, Jacob Black assaulted my girlfriend, Isabella Swan...Yes, an ambulance is necessary. Her neck was injured...he pulled her hair and dragged her across the ground by it. We're at First Beach in La Push. Thank you. We'll be waiting."

Jake wrenched himself out of his friends' arms and began to step away from the group. I could see it in his eyes that he was ready to make a run for it, but they quickly gripped their hands down on his shoulders. "Not worth it, man. You're gonna have to own up to this one," Quil said.

"Jake." It was Billy now. "You will stay here, son." Jake's eyes were wide in panic and then they flickered to me in Edward's arms.

"Why?" I whispered to him. "After everything we've been through? What did I do?" My voice cracked at the end. _Let me in on this secret of yours, Jake._

His mouth popped open in preparation of answering my questions. There was a reason to all of this madness. But it shut before he spoke that reason.

A cop car pulled up with its lights and sirens on a minute later followed immediately by an ambulance. Edward was walking toward the officers and the EMT with the bag as soon as they stepped out of the vehicles. They opened the doors to the back of the ambulance and had Edward sit me down in the back so they could check me. Edward wouldn't leave my side.

"My name is Joshua," the paramedic said. "I hear you were dragged my your hair. What hurts?" He had lifted my hair and was poking around at the bones in my neck.

I felt like I was outside my body looking in at the situation. It was so surreal. "My neck hurts the most, but I have a pretty bad headache, too," I spoke quietly. He placed his palm on the top of my head to apply more pressure on my neck, and that caused me to cry out. Edward flinched and took my hand in his. "Add my scalp to the list."

Edward hung his head and muttered, "I knew we shouldn't have stayed, Bella. I can't believe I let him touch you. I promised I wouldn't."

"Stop," I whispered. "That was my fault."

Another police car pulled up, and a man walked over to us. "I'm Officer Austin Marks. Are you Edward Cullen?"

"Yes," he answered.

"I'd like to get a statement from you on what happened." He looked over at me. "I assume you are Isabella Swan?"

"Yes."

"Charlie's daughter?"

"Yes."

"He radioed in that he tried to get away from the accident scene, but his hands are tied. He will speak with you as soon as he's available. I'll be sure to tell him that you look like you're going to be fine so he can calm down."

My dad was upset. This bothered me. He couldn't worry about me or this.

Edward recounted what had happened but downplayed my football move. Then he had me answer a few questions as the paramedic tilted my head from side to side. Officer Marks thanked us, closed his notebook and headed out toward the beach where the other officers were with Jake.

"I'm going to have you rotate your neck for me, sweetie," Joshua said. He was a kind and gentle older man with salt and pepper hair. He held the sides of my head and had me roll it around on my shoulders. It hurt. It really freaking hurt. "I think you just have a neck sprain, Bella. Nothing too serious. It hurts now, but make sure you rest your neck, ice it often, and you can have this gentleman of yours massage it carefully. I'd give you a neck collar, but I'm sure you don't want to wear that."

"Not really," I confirmed.

Once I completed that part of the exam, he had me tip my head forward so he could inspect my scalp. "Yeah, I guess your scalp _would_ hurt," he said. "Most of it is just irritated, but you've got a few patches of blood. There are a couple of chunks of hair missing."

Edward groaned. "I should have kicked his ass. Why did I hold myself back?"

I was shocked. "If you would have kicked his ass, you would be in the back of that police car right now instead of with me."

Joshua pulled out rubbing alcohol and was cleaning the areas that were bleeding. The cold liquid burned my raw skin. Edward encouraged me to squeeze his hand when I needed to.

"What's this from?" Joshua asked. His thumb traced over the three inch long permanently-whitened, hairless area. _Don't make me answer._

"What's what from?" Edward asked concernedly. He leaned in and looked at what he was talking about. My heart cracked open. I fought with all of my might to put my shield up. I fought to not feel the pain. I was losing the fight. "Bella? What is that from?"

"I wish I'd never met you!" an irate Jake spat, interrupting all of our thoughts. I looked up, meeting his eyes as he struggled against the police officer's hold. He was handcuffed and being taken to the back of the squad car.

"Keep talking," Officer Marks warned. "I don't like men that hurt women."

Jake's face was tensed in anger. He was animalistic in his rage. I cowered away from him even though there was a good 10 feet between us. The need to protect myself from him was instinctive now. This man and I used to cry ourselves to sleep, holding onto each other for comfort. He was once my lover and confidant. And, now he was being arrested for assaulting me. How had it come to this?

That's when Jake decided to make one last ditch effort at getting revenge. He lunged in the air, and Edward put his body between us to protect me, though it was completely unnecessary. Jake was slammed loudly onto the asphalt before he could even get a foot closer to where I was perched in the back of the ambulance. The cop had his knee in his back now, incapacitating him.

"Add resisting arrest to assault and battery!" he yelled. Jake was pulled up by his arms that were handcuffed behind his back and was yanked backwards away from me forcefully. His face was bright red as he struggled.

Everything was different now. All trust was gone. Jake had hurt me both emotionally and physically, and there was no going back to fix the wounds he had caused.

We all watched as he was dragged backwards, feeling the tension start to ebb. My muscles began to relax knowing that this night was almost over and soon I would be home with Edward being taken care of with soothing hands and whispered words of calming. Right before he was thrown in the back of the squad car head first, he was able to yell one more thing to me, though. It was the one thing I never ever thought he would say or even think after what we had been through, and I didn't even think he'd say or think it after what just happened on the beach. Nothing would be the same.

"Why didn't you die in the accident with your mother?!" he growled.

Edward gasped, and I lost every last bit of strength that I'd ever built up over the years. I felt the pain locked away in the back corner of my mind burst free and swim through my veins to be pumped to every part of my body.

I was running. Running away from Jake, from Edward, from what had happened to my mother and from what had happened to me. The wind was blowing through my hair, parting it where my scar laid hidden in my scalp. The salty ocean air was smacking me in the face and mixing with my salty tears. I couldn't breathe, but I didn't want the air.

Scenes from the accident slammed into my field of vision, knocking my legs right out from under me, and I was back there once again.

I laid there on the ground screaming. Screaming in pain. Screaming for my mother. Everything was different now. Nothing would be the same. Then I felt a calming hand brush against my forehead.

"Daddy," I sobbed. "She's gone." He was the first officer to arrive on the scene. He was the first to realize it was me. His voice was the first and only thing that was clear to me in the wreckage that was my present and future.

"You're alive," he whispered.

I was pulled up into his arms, cradled and rocked just like I was a baby. Sirens were a dull roar around me and muffled voices yelled for gurneys and the jaws of life.

"She's not," I cried.

I was sitting in the back seat on my way home from dinner and a movie in Port Angeles for Kate's birthday. She was driving and mom was in the passenger seat laughing. Billy sat behind mom and next to me in the back. Dad had gotten called into work, and Jake was grounded for being caught with a case of beer in his bedroom. I was the only one under the age of 37 at this celebration. Seventeen to be exact. I was horrified at that fact. I had been seen in public by my high school friends with a group of adults. If I'd have only known what real horror lie 1000 feet ahead around that curve, I would have realized how perfect my life was, though.

We were all singing and laughing along to the radio. And, then we were screaming.

"What was it?" he asked. His arms gripped me tighter.

"Elk," I whispered. Everything seemed to go in slow motion once we saw it. Kate jerked the wheel, but the motion felt smooth since time had slowed down so much, and the car went airborne off the side of the road. We were floating. It was almost peaceful. Our hair was elevated out at the sides of our heads just like our arms. My mom turned in her seat all of a sudden and my brown eyes met her stunning emerald green eyes. They were filled with tears. That's when I knew this was it. She knew it, and I knew it.

She extended her hand back reaching toward me and mouthed, "Live," and then we stopped our flight abruptly. Her neck snapped as soon as we slammed into the tree. The death was instant. The realization of death, though, was a long drawn-out process containing flashes of missed futures.

She would not see me graduate from high school or cry at my wedding. She would not coach me through labor or take her grandchildren for the weekend. And, she would not grow old with my dad.

That's when time sped up.

I was screaming in the backseat. My mother was lifeless. Billy was lifeless. Kate was lifeless. Everybody but me.

"Live," I cried.

My head was throbbing, my eyes couldn't focus and my leg was obviously broken. Blood was everywhere. The door wouldn't budge next to me no matter how hard I pushed. I was in a twisted clump of metal that once was considered a car. White lights came around the curve in the road and showed me that the windshield was completely busted out and pushed almost all the way into the backseat where I sat. I was so tired, and I was in so much pain. But, I had to get out.

"Live," I cried, again.

"Live," he whispered into my ear.

I used my arms and pulled myself forward under the collapsed roof of the car between the front two seats over the crushed middle console and shifter. My palms were sliced open as the tempered glass dug into my skin and the stinging pain was so familiar for some reason. My leg screamed at me at my shin, my neck throbbed from the whiplash when my head slammed into Kate's headrest and my scalp burned for an unknown reason. I touched my hand where it hurt and found that I was bleeding profusely from a gash on the top of my head. My vision was blurred because the blood was draining into my eyes. I screamed at how gruesome it was.

The car with the lights, my beacon of hope, slowed as it came upon the accident, and I slid down what was left of the hood awkwardly and fell to the ground.

"Live," I sobbed.

"Live," he shakily repeated into my hair.

The man that was driving the car said something to me, but I couldn't understand him. He didn't approach me, but I could see and feel him pacing the area in front of my body. It seemed like hours that I laid on the ground alone, all alone in my world of shock, in a pool of my own blood before I felt familiar arms pull me from my protective ball, wipe the blood from my forehead and cradle me to his chest.

"Daddy," I sobbed. "She's gone."

I was being carried then, carried toward the ambulance. Taken away from the horror that my evening had become. The pain was overtaking me. Darkness was creeping in around the edge of my eyes. Then it all went black.

* * *

My eyes cracked open just enough to see that I was in my bedroom and then they shut again. _Just a dream._ It felt so good to be awake. _It was just a dream...but what a horrible dream._

I opened my eyes again, willing myself to wake up fully so that I would not finish it out. The room was dark save for the sliver of dim early morning light creeping under the curtains that had been closed around the room. Edward must have closed them sometime during the night because I didn't.

I was in a strange position on the bed. Not since Edward had come back had I slept on my back, and not ever had I slept so rigidly. Laying on my back with my legs straight out in front of me, my hands laying one on top of the other on my stomach and my head propped straight on two pillows was eerily familiar. A scene that I had been so grateful not to relive through my dream shot through my vision, and I cringed.

The movement in trying to push away the memory of my mother in her casket jerked my neck. This was why I didn't sleep like this. My neck was in knots.

"Bella?" Edward whispered.

I rotated my head to see him and groaned again at the amount of pain. The darkness in the room almost hid him. "Why are you over there?" I asked. He was all the way on the other side of my king bed laying on his side looking at me.

"Do you recognize me?" He sounded sad.

"What? Of course I recognize you. I can barely see you, but I would know your voice anywhere."

"Who am I?" he asked quietly. "Can you tell me where you are?"

This was getting incredibly irritating.

"Why the hell are you asking me these questions?" I voiced. "Are you going to ask if I know my name next? I'm Isabella Marie Swan. You're Edward Anthony Cullen. I'm in my bedroom. And, I'm holding up one finger." I'd raised my hand and was flipping him off. It was playful yet so full of truth at the same time.

There was a small smile at the corner of his lips that I could just make out thanks to my eyes adjusting, and then he sighed. "I'm not trying to treat you like a crazy person, Bella. Since the...the incident last night, you've been in and out of consciousness all night."

"_Incident?"_ I whispered.

All he had to say was "Jake" and it all came rushing back to me like a tidal wave. He was next to me in a second, holding me gently to his chest as the evening replayed in my memories. My neck didn't hurt from sleeping the way I did; it hurt because my head had practically been ripped off in Jake's tirade. I placed my palm on the top of my head and felt how tender it was from the chunks of hair that he'd ripped out. I bent my leg up and curled my hand around my shin that was throbbing, my fingertips falling into the small scars from the broken bowl. I scanned my evening trying to remember how he hurt it. Nothing registered.

There must have been a puzzled look on my face because Edward said, "You ran into a piece of driftwood when you were running away after what he said. It knocked your feet out from under you."

"Oh, God" I gasped. It wasn't a dream. What I had experienced was a horrifying flashback of the night my mother died...the night _I_ almost died. "Edward...I...I'm sorry I didn't tell you. Please forgive me. I'm sorry I kept it a secret."

"Shhhhh," he hushed. "Everything is okay now. You're safe. You've come back to me."

"No, everything is not okay, Edward," I cried. "I never wanted you to find out this way." Everything I had ever kept secret about the accident was now going to have to be brought out in the open. This was not the way this should have happened.

"What happened?" I whimpered. "I barely remember anything."

"Are you sure you want to know?" he choked. "Will it send you back to the accident? I can't put you through that again." He was on the verge of tears.

"Yes," I sniffled. "I want to know. This happened to me, and you are the only person that can tell me what I did."

"But, will it send you back?" he asked.

That was a question I had no answer to. "I don't know, Edward. If I'm spiraling back, please just hold me. Don't let go...ever."

"Never," he said. His arms tightened around me as we prepared for a possible onslaught.

"Was it you that was talking to me...talking me through it?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"Tell me everything."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "My mind started racing as soon as the words left his mouth. I wondered if I actually heard what I thought I did. I replayed everything you'd ever said to me and everything anybody else had said in my mind. I was looking for clues, baby. There were none that pointed directly to this. If I'd have known--"

I touched his face with my hand to soothe him. How could he start laying any sort of blame or guilt on himself when he had done absolutely nothing wrong?

"I kept this from you," I said. "For years I've separated myself from the accident. I've thought about it in groups not consisting of myself because it hurt too much. It has always been an accident with Billy and Kate or my mother's death – never my accident. You couldn't have known."

"I knew part of it," he whispered. "I knew more than what you told me."

"How?" I asked.

"Jasper said your mother and Jake's mother died in _the_ car accident. It never registered with me that he said _the_ and not _a_ car accident. There is so much more implied with that word. The look he gave me...I thought it was surprise that I didn't know about your mom's passing. It was so much more than I ever knew."

"So much more," I confirmed.

"When I turned around to you as soon as it sunk in, you were gone. My eyes darted out to the beach, and I saw that you were already out of the light of the fire. The only thing lighting you was the moon. I took off after you instantly."

I remembered running and crying.

"You ran so fast, Bella, and got so far. I don't know how you did it. It was like you were trying to outrun everything that had happened. I was just about to catch you when I saw the driftwood, but it was too late. Your shin caught on it, and you slammed into the sand. God, baby. I've never seen someone scream that hard. I thought you'd broken your leg. If it wasn't for your boots to cushion the impact, your shin would have snapped in half. I felt helpless."

I watched a tear escape his eye.

"You were already gone. You were already back to that night. When I touched your forehead to wipe away the sweat and sand, you said, 'Daddy, she's gone,' and I collapsed to the ground and held you to my chest while you cried. That was all I could think to do."

"I remember," I whispered. "I remember you holding me."

"You recounted everything like you were an observer and also the victim. The elk and the flying. Your mother and her death. You were so brave, Bella. You fought so hard." He paused to take a shaky breath and brush a piece of hair off my cheek. "Live," he said.

"Live," I repeated just as shakily. The strain in my throat was too painful, so I allowed it to relax by letting the tears fall in torrents. Her eyes. Her beautiful yet frightened green eyes. As they filled my memory, the vision morphed out of nowhere into my dream the first night that Jake's laugh was heard off to my left. "Live" I'd told Edward as I stared into _his_ beautiful yet frightened green eyes while I waited for James to pull the trigger. It was so very different, yet so very much the same. _I_ was the one telling _him_ to go on without _me_. If I could pass on anything to Edward, it would be my mother's strength when she knew she had nothing more that she could give.

The tears fell harder from my eyes, and he pulled me tighter to him until I had calmed down enough to continue. It felt like a betrayal to cry over my mother. I hadn't allowed myself to cry like this in so long. I wiped my tears on his shirt and went on.

"It was my mother's last wish and demand for me, and it was something I've done and continued to do since that day. I take nothing for granted and celebrate every moment of my life now in honor of her. I put my whole self into everything and don't hold back. I can't do it knowing that I might be missing out on something."

"That first day when you dropped me off near the hotel, you said you were celebrating life," he said. "That was in honor of her?"

"Yes," I answered. "I celebrate that I simply lived. Alice celebrates because Jasper lived after being in an explosion in Iraq. She knows how lucky she is to have him home and there to raise Brandon. And Rosalie celebrates life because despite the fact that her ability to produce it may have been taken away from her, she does still have hers and can make a difference. We're all very lucky."

The people I surrounded myself with were extraordinary and kind and compassionate. Without them, without all of them, I would be a shell of my whole self.

"It took me a long time to get over my mother's death and what had happened. Jake was my reason for that. I know you can't see him as a caring person because all you've ever seen was him being so cruel, but he was a sweet boy at one time but just as screwed up as me."

Edward nodded.

"We shared that common bond of losing our mothers. We watched our fathers crumble at the loss of their wives, so we made a pact to shoulder the pain that they felt by any means we could come up with until it was just the two of us. Then we would collapse from the weight. He came over almost every night and laid in my bed while we cried ourselves to sleep."

"Bella," Edward whispered. "That's too much for one person to take on. You never should have had to do that. You were just a kid."

"But, I did, Edward. My father is the only relative I have left in this world. His depression could have killed him if I hadn't distracted him and blocked out my own pain to help him cope." My voice faltered at the end as I thought about what I was about to say. "My father is a cop, baby. There was a gun in every room of the house, except for my bedroom and the bathroom. At any moment he could have lost it, and I would have been all alone in this world."

He leaned his forehead against mine as he processed what I'd said.

"I found him one afternoon after school in the kitchen staring at the gun that was usually in the locked case in the junk drawer. He was just standing there holding it with his finger on the trigger. If I hadn't walked in and asked for his help with going to the grocery store, that would have been it. I know it would have been."

I could still feel how my lungs tightened and my legs buckled when I saw that gun in his hand. Missed futures flashed before my eyes like they had with my mom, and I knew that I had a chance to change this outcome. I had to act quickly or everything I'd worked so hard to protect would be violently taken away from me again in front of my eyes.

"I lived, Edward. I did what my mother asked of me by doing whatever I had to do to get from one day to the next. But it took almost a year to realize what she meant. I lived for a reason, and I needed to find out why. I thought it was Jake all these years. I thought I lived for him." I shook my head. "It was you."

When I saw Jake that night in bed with Jessica, it felt like my support was gone. The weight of the tragedy had grown lighter as time went on, and I hadn't needed his shoulder to cry on in so long, but what if there ever came the time that I did? There would be nobody for me to go to. I couldn't reach out for my father because I couldn't risk reigniting those memories, and nobody else knew of my struggle.

That time came when I needed someone, and here was Edward. He held me and let me cry until I no longer could any more. He was my strength when I was no longer strong enough to fight. Edward was why I lived.

"What happened next?" I asked him.

"You were fighting to get out of the car. Every time you would say 'live' I would repeat it to you to encourage you to get out. I know you're here and that you lived, but there was a fear that if you didn't get out in your flashback, you would disappear from my arms like you never existed."

Another tear fell from both of our eyes.

"Your hands," he took my palms and kissed them, "stung from the glass and from when James tripped you."

"Your neck," he curled his hand around the back of it and squeezed gently, "hurt from the whiplash and from Jake."

"Your leg," he ran his fingers softly down my shin, "hurt from being broken and from running into the driftwood."

"Your scalp," he traced his finger along my scar and kissed it tenderly, "stung from the gash and from your hair being ripped out."

There had been something I'd never told him because I couldn't. There was no way I could without telling him the truth. "Every time you've ever kissed my hair, you've kissed me right over my scar. You were always finding ways to comfort and protect me, even when you don't know it."

He looked at me in awe.

"What gave you the scar?" he asked. The crash flashed through my mind again, and he pulled me closer to him when he felt me stiffen. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"When the car slammed into the tree, the impact was so great that the roof of the car crumpled back and down on top of us. A sharp piece of metal that had bent down into the car cut my head open."

He flinched. My past and present pain affected him. "What were your injuries?"

"I only had the broken leg and the cut on my head. And, of course, my body was covered in bruises. The bone never broke the skin, and the cut was in my hair. Once the bruises subsided, all of my injuries were hidden."

"Like your pain."

"The doctors didn't understand how I survived let alone had such superficial injuries."

"Billy lived," Edward said.

"He lived and Kate was alive for a while, too. Mom was the only one who died at the scene."

"Not instantly," he whispered.

"No, not instantly. That word will never comfort me. It's not instant when you're the one going through it."

I paused before continuing.

"There have been triggers all along leading up to this. It was only a matter of time before I had a flashback," I told him. I pulled back and put my hand on the side of his face. "Your eyes...the color is so rare. But, they are the same color as hers were. I've been so good at shielding my pain that I didn't even realize it until I was in LA looking at the necklace you bought me. Your eyes and hers and the tourmaline are all the same color. I carry a piece of you and her with me every time I wear it."

"I had no idea," he replied.

"You couldn't have," I assured him. "And, then the motorcycle accident before we got there. It was all so familiar. I couldn't even look. I'd seen it before, and I never wanted to see it again."

We laid there for a minute in silence before I asked him to continue. There were still things that I didn't remember.

"As soon as you came full circle and were back to where your dad found you on the ground screaming, I picked you up off the beach and carried you back to the car. Sue and Harry were still there and helped me get you in the backseat. They kissed you and apologized for not stopping Jake or even knowing he was capable of what he did. Harry told me that they told the police that Jessica started the fight and you were protecting yourself."

I hadn't even thought about what could happen to me. I could go to jail for attacking Jessica.

"I drove you home and brought you up to bed. I've been awake with you all night. You've been screaming and crying." I sighed and ran my finger along the bags under his eyes.

"You have to work today," I frowned.

"I called Emmett last night and told him I was sick and wouldn't be coming in. They're going to film Victoria's scenes today." He took a deep breath. "I...I called my mom, too, Bella. You scared me, baby. She deals with this kind of trauma every day, and I needed her assurance that you would come out of it. My father got on the line, too, and was asking about your injuries. I hope you can forgive me for telling them everything."

He was working himself up and it upset me. "There's nothing to forgive, Edward." I kissed him so that he knew I meant it. "I put you in a difficult position. You had no warning. I don't blame you for calling your parents."

"Mom said that when you passed out, you were trying to protect your mind. She said it may take a few minutes to come out, and it may take an entire evening depending on how much you had been repressing and how much grief you felt. If you didn't come out of it by the morning I would need to take you to the hospital."

I grimaced. That was the last place I wanted to go.

We fell into another silence. So much had happened since last night. Painful secrets had been painfully revealed. And, there was one more secret to be offered, though this was not painful in any way.

"Can I show you something?" I asked. It was time that someone else saw it.

"Anything."

"Can you carry me over to the corner?" I pointed to the place behind him where the glass met the inside wall of my bedroom. He looked at me speculatively but complied.

When we got there, I reached out and pulled back the curtain that surrounded the entire room except for the other inside wall where the door to the hallway and bathroom were. Behind the curtain was a hidden door.

"Open it," I said. He reached forward slowly with his right hand that was tucked under my knees, turned the knob and pushed the door open. When he walked in with me in his arms, I flipped the light switch.

"This is where I go when I need to be near her," I told him. His eyes scanned the room. "When I built this house, I had them make this the only room that did not have an outside glass wall besides the bathrooms. This was my room, my library I guess you could call it, and not anybody else's. Jake didn't even know about this. I couldn't share this with the world. But, I'm sharing it with you."

In the middle of the room sat the piano that she taught me how to play on. Then, a series of oil paintings ran in a line around the room like a belt and through the middle of the bookshelves. He held me in his arms and spun looking at all of them. They depicted one place and flowed from one canvas to the next.

"It was our meadow," I whispered. "My mother painted all of these. She would take me out in the meadow while she painted. It was always just the two of us. Dad never knew." Edward stopped spinning when he came upon the empty spot on the wall. One blank space perfect for one last canvas.

"She never finished it," he said.

"No, she never had the chance. Spring had just come around again for the wildflowers to bloom. We were going the next day. It was going to be sunny."

Edward hung his head as he closed his eyes, and I put my hand on his cheek to comfort him. He had once told me that my pain was his pain. He needed me as much as I needed him right now.

"I want to show you something else. Walk me along the bookshelves." He walked the perimeter of the room as I showed him books that I couldn't put on the shelves at the bookstore. When we came up on _The Jungle_, he smiled. "This is too precious," I told him. "This was for me, not for anybody else."

He continued and stopped when we came upon children's books. "These are the books my mother would read me every night before I went to bed." I ran my fingers along their spines and stopped when I came upon nine familiar books. "Mine," I said. Edward stood in front of them and then another tear escaped his eye.

"My first three that I told you I published were these," I pulled them out and held them in my hands. "_I Miss You, Mommy_ and _I Miss You, Daddy_ were the first books I ever wrote. They were books for young children when they lost a parent. Though mom was the only one that was truly gone, it didn't feel strange writing about losing a dad when he was in his own head so much."

I took the third book and brought it to the front of the stack. "_Live_ was the book for teens and young adults for when they lost someone close to them. That one simple word has changed my life, and I felt I needed to reach out to anybody I could. When you're a child, you're sheltered from pain and told a fairytale of what happens to someone when they die. When you're older, you know what happens and are affected by it so much more. It haunts you and sickens you and can ruin your life if you let it." I held it up. "It was very therapeutic to write."

After replacing them on the shelf, I looked up at Edward and saw the love in his eyes that he held for me. "You are the bravest, strongest person I've ever met, Isabella." He leaned in and kissed me while he walked to the piano bench. When he sat down, he kept me in his lap but opened the cover to uncover the keys. His fingers rested on the ivory and then he started to play. It was a tune I knew by heart. _Clair de Lune._

"Her favorite," I whispered, leaning in to kiss his cheek. "How do you always know how to make it better?" I rested my hands on top of his, closed my eyes and played along with him, letting myself forget the sadness so that I could _live_ in the happiness that he brought my soul.

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

**** Bella's outfit from the bonfire is in my profile under last chapter. ****

_FREE HUGS TO THOSE THAT NEED ONE__ - Step right up_**  
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How are we all doing? Need a tissue? Did any of you see that coming?

There have been hints all along the way, but they've been subtle. Now we have the story behind Renee and the accident and some insight into our dear Bella. She's been through a lot. At least Edward was there for her when she needed someone.

Has Jake reclaimed the top spot on your hate list for this story?

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	18. Chapter 18 An Unknown Question

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language,** violence, **lemons**

**WARNING: An infant's death is discussed in this chapter. Not graphic.  
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**CHAPTER 18**

**An Unknown Question**

I made my way down the hall toward the bedroom and leaned against the doorway so that I could look at my love. She sat on the end of the bed looking out toward the south, toward the meadow that was hers and her mother's secret place, the placed depicted in the beautiful purple and green paintings in her library behind the curtain.

This week had been difficult for her. It was difficult for me, too, but I knew it was nothing in comparison to what she was going through. She had painfully bared all of herself to me including all of her weaknesses. At least that's how she saw them. All these supposed weaknesses of hers only showed me how incredibly strong and resilient she was. And, therein lies the problem. She could not allow herself to suppress her emotions anymore because they were eating away at her. Crippling flashbacks would continue to be a part of her life if she didn't confront her feelings and learn to heal from the tragedy not hide.

Don't get me wrong. Bella was an amazing woman to be able to handle that amount of suffering and stress. Jasper was right when he said she was stronger than all of us combined. But, it was evident that he had absolutely no idea. Nobody had _any_ clue how much pain she was hiding...except for Jake. But, he was the reason why she was suffering right now, and I would never forgive him for that. He could rot in that jail cell that he was still in because of his denied bail. I didn't give a damn if he had a reason for the things he did or said to her.

Jake could beg for forgiveness by groveling at her feet tomorrow and claim that he suppressed his pain until he snapped just like she did, and it wouldn't matter. Bella had turned into such a beautiful person inside and out despite her troubles, and that was something he did not possess. She had a strong character and was an inspiration. And, my God, this woman loved with all of her might. She loved her friends like they were her brothers and sisters. She loved her father so much that she took away all of his pain and doubled her own. And, she loved me because she believed I was the reason she lived. I had been born to find her and make her happy, and she lived to do the same for me.

My mother had called the afternoon after we played together on Renee's piano to see how Bella was doing. I tried giving her a rundown of what had happened, but she only wanted to speak to Bella. I pulled her into my lap for comfort because I knew what she was going to tell her.

"I'm going to tell you a story about myself, Bella, and you might not understand why I'm telling you, but I do have a reason. It will more than likely cause you to become upset, and that's okay, but know that I am happy despite what happened."

"Alright," Bella said.

"When Carlisle and I first got married, we got pregnant right away," she recounted. "It had always been my dream to be a mother. I delivered a healthy 7 pound, 8 ounce baby girl with a full head of bronze curls on a Tuesday, and three Tuesdays later she was gone."

Bella threw her hand over her mouth and started to cry.

"I woke up and noticed the sun was much higher in the sky than I was used to. At first, I was ecstatic that my baby had slept through the night. Babies just didn't do that. Carlisle and I had both been warned that we would be up at all hours of the night feeding and changing and soothing. And, at three weeks, here I was getting to sleep in. I had a perfect angel for a baby. I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stretched before I stood. As soon as I did stand, though, I saw her in her bassinet and my world came to a crashing halt."

Bella buried her face in my neck to soften her cries.

"Carlisle was at work at the hospital as a resident, so I grabbed her and sped all the way to the emergency room. There was nothing that he or anybody could do, though. She'd been gone for hours. There was no explanation for what had happened, and it was diagnosed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome."

"What was her name?" Bella asked, and I wrapped my arms around her tighter.

Mom paused before answering. "Mary."

Bella's face was blank before she looked up at me. Her lip was trembling. "Mary," she whispered to me. She understood the significance of the name she chose for her future daughter...our future daughter. Mary was far more than Alice's first name or a form of her grandmother's name and her middle name. It was my sister's name; a sister that died years before I was born.

"I grieved for a long time over the loss of my daughter. One night Carlisle and I got into a horrible argument about how I laid around the house and did nothing. He said that I should be doing something to help me heal. It angered me. I thought I _was_ trying to heal. I stormed off and cried myself to sleep that night alone in our bed. The next morning, I woke up to a sunny sky, much like that morning I found her in her bassinet. I rolled over, groggy with sleep, and found a note resting on Carlisle's pillow. My immediate thought was that he had left me. When I read it though, I knew that was not the case."

"What did it say?" Bella asked.

"Don't heal for me, my darling. Heal for our future babies. Heal for you. I'll love you forever – every day of forever."

Bella sighed and leaned into me more. I'd heard this story a dozen times, but it never hit me the way it just did. I never knew what it meant to love like that, but now I did.

"I got out of bed, took a shower, got dressed and walked out the front door of our apartment on a mission."

"What was it?" Bella asked.

"I was going to go to school. Carlisle and I had both come from well-to-do families, so we never struggled for money despite having only his one income. The plan had always been for me to go to college, but when I got pregnant with Mary, we both thought it would be best if I was a homemaker. Now that my child was gone, it would do good to get out and meet new people. I luckily applied on the last available day to do so for the local college, and when I got my acceptance letter, I enrolled in a variety of different classes to help me find out who I was. My psychology class was what changed my life and helped me become whole again.

"As I got higher up in my courses, I began to realize that I could help others when they needed it because I had been through a tragedy and had come out of it stronger and happier than I was before. I decided on becoming a grief counselor, and I've been doing that for 25 years now."

"That's very inspiring," Bella said. "I guess I've tried doing the same kind of thing, but my situation was different. I couldn't leave to find myself." She looked up at me then and looked scared. "I'm sorry, Esme, but I may be talking to you and Edward at the same time when I say this. I lied to Edward before when I spoke of my schooling."

My eyebrows scrunched together. _What had she lied about?_

"I finished my courses in three years, but I had said that I drove home every weekend to open the store. I actually rarely ever left Forks. I couldn't leave my father here alone."

I sighed and then kissed the tip of her nose so that she knew that I understood why she didn't tell me.

"I had to go to Seattle several times throughout the school year for tests and presentations, but the university allowed me to work with my professors through webcam and email the other times. When I said that my grandmother had left me a hefty sum of money, I meant it. The university was more than eager to accommodate my needs when I donated $5 million."

"Holy shit," I breathed. She had done this at the age of 18.

"Edward Anthony Cullen..." mom scolded.

"I did what I had to do, Edward. If that meant donating half of the money she had left me so that I could be there for my dad, then I was going to do it. I would have donated all of it if they hadn't been so excited about the $5 million."

She cracked a smile then, her first of the day. I could tell it helped her to talk about it. She went on to tell mom about the first three books she wrote.

"You say they were therapeutic, Bella, but why do you still think you suppress so much pain?"

"I...I don't know," she whispered. Tears were welling up in her eyes again, and she was starting to sniffle. "I thought I was better."

Mom waited for her calm down before continuing. "Honey, I'm going to extend you the same offer I extended to Rosalie. I am here for you if you ever want to talk. Anything that is said will be strictly confidential. I may be Edward's mother, but I am also a counselor. I want to help you heal yourself, okay? It's time that you took care of yourself. For you."

And, with that, Bella agreed to do sessions with mom for as long as she needed them.

Leaning against the doorway, I was amazed by how far the love of my life had come in one week. I'd just gotten home after a half day of filming. If mom and Bella had stuck to their schedule, her latest session probably ended only fifteen minutes ago. Judging by the phone on the bed next to her, it had.

Pushing myself off the door frame, I crawled on the bed behind her.

"Need to talk?" I whispered as I moved her hair to one side so I could massage her neck where I knew she hurt the most. She was still sore from where Jake dragged her, but it was much better than it was a week ago.

"Esme said I should go back to the meadow."

"Are you ready for something like that?" I asked. Did my mom understand how significant a place that was for her? Did she know about the paintings and how Renee was to finish it the day after her tragic death?

"I...I think I am. Esme said that going back is all a part of the healing process, and I will be like the paintings if I do not revisit the meadow."

"Incomplete?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered. She was better than she was a week ago, but she was far from healed. I could tell in her face that she was getting down on herself for not being _cured_.

"Though incomplete, they are still beautiful, Bella. They are still cherished and loved and something to be proud of."

She blushed knowing that I wasn't only talking about the paintings. "I want to go back."

"When?"

"I think now."

"I'll support you until you don't need me anymore, okay?"

"I'll always need you," she whispered, sincerity sparkling in her eyes.

"Then, I'll always support you. For you, anything, my beautiful Bella."

I helped her off the bed and we went into the closet to dress in warmer clothes. Pulling a backpack from a drawer, she stuffed a blanket in it. When we walked downstairs, she saw a booklet folded in half on the table in the foyer.

"Is that your script?" she asked.

"Yeah, I've got to practice my lines sometime for tomorrow."

"Bring it along," she said. "I don't just want to go there and cry. We should do something creative while we're there, in honor of her."

"You want to read lines with me?" I asked.

"Of course. It will be like a book I've never read."

I grabbed the script, and we headed out the door to her Volvo. Once inside, she drove out to the main road and turned east. We only went about a mile before she turned south. This road went on for a couple of miles before it ended at a trail head.

I took her hand and started making my way to the entrance of the trail, but she pulled back slowing me. Her resistance threw up a red flag for me. She wasn't ready. I stopped and cupped her face, ready to kiss away her tears, but there were none.

"We don't have to go," I told her anyways.

There was a hint of a smile on her lips. "The peroxide is not in the produce section, Edward."

"Excuse me?" I asked in an unnaturally high tone.

"The _secret _meadow wouldn't be on the _public_ trail."

"Oh," I replied. "Well, where is it?"

Her finger pointed up in the opposite direction of the trail into the dense trees of the Olympic National Forest. "That way."

She took my hand this time and led me through a group of large, low-lying ferns. She said that the meadow was a couple of miles off the road. Bella was faster at maneuvering the fallen trees and small streams, even with her injured leg and neck, and it went to show that she had done this several times in her lifetime.

As we trekked, the only noises were the surprisingly loud popping sounds, probably due to the overwhelming quiet that surrounded us, of tiny branches snapping under our feet and the occasional wild animal scurrying away when it was surprised by our presence. The forest held a serene peace despite our noisy interruption of what I was sure was humming yet silent life above and below us as the inhabitants of this place went about their business as they did every day.

"It's so green," I whispered to myself, trailing my fingertips through the vibrant foliage. A far cry from palm trees, concrete and sun, Washington was a place that had captured a part of my heart and would forever keep it. The part was small, though, for Bella had captured the rest.

I could see light ahead of us through the trees. _Could that be it?_ By the way Bella was slowing, I knew it had to be. Squeezing her hand, I brought it up to my lips so that I could kiss each of her fingers. This always seemed to be something that calmed her.

"I'm here," I told her.

She nodded and pushed through the last of the trees and ferns into a perfectly round meadow. We stopped walking when we reached the center. The wildflowers from the paintings were nowhere to be seen, and the green of the trees and grasses was yellowing with the colder temperatures. It looked nothing like the colorful, serene place Renee had captured.

"It's dying," Bella choked all of a sudden. Her entire body started to shake, but before she could fall, I had her pulled into my arms so that I could support her weight. She was comparing the dying grasses to her mother.

I dropped to my knees with her in my arms and rocked her while she cried. That's when I saw it. Under the tall, yellowing grasses was shorter, green grass. _Emerald_ green grass.

"Bella," I said. "Look." I pointed my finger toward it, and she turned her head to follow my hand.

"It's alive," she breathed. Just then a breeze blew her hair and whipped it around her face. Her face broke out into a smile, and she turned to me.

"She's still here," I said. "She's in that grass. She's in the wind. And, when the flowers come up again in the Spring, she'll be waiting for you."

"For what?" she asked.

"To complete the painting."

Her eyes widened.

"It's too beautiful to be incomplete," I said as I trailed my fingers from her temple down along her jaw.

We spread the blanket on the ground a few minutes later, and I got her to lay down with me. She took the script out of my back pocket and opened it up to the dogeared page a third of the way through.

"Is this the scene you've got to learn?" she asked.

"Yep," I replied. I saw her eyes scanning the first few lines. This was one of those scenes that you had to get right, and something just felt off when I was practicing with Victoria. It was crucial that I found that chemistry because it could make or break the movie.

"Do you want to start?" she asked.

"If you want to. Start at the top of the page. It's only Charlotte and Peter the whole scene, and you'll have the first line."

She sat up on her knees and rested back on her heels in front of me. She was reading the Action before the lines.

_EXT./INT. CHARLOTTE'S HOME – NIGHT_

_CHARLOTTE ascends the steps into her home. She takes off her hat and hooks it on the hat rack before she places her coat next to hat. Her eyes travel to the roaring fire blazing in the living room. She hasn't been home for hours._

**"Hello? Is someone here?"** Bella read.

_Charlotte walks through the house and glances around corners looking for the person responsible for warming her house while she was away. Nobody is downstairs. She climbs the staircase and sees light in her bedroom under the door. It is a dim, flickering light, but it is enough that she sees it. She turns the knob slowly and gasps. The room is filled with candles and a man stands at the foot of her bed._

**"Peter."**

_She feels faint. It's been 14 months since she'd seen PETER. He'd come home from the war alive._

Bella was starting to get into this. I had to choke down a laugh when she threw the back of her hand over her forehead dramatically to indicate feeling faint. She was such a bad actress. And, dammit, if she wasn't cuter for it.

_Peter rushes to her side despite his slight limp and holds her in his arms._

If Bella really wanted to get into this, then I would oblige her. It would be of no help to me to act out this part badly right now, but if it got her mind on something else, then I was more than happy to do it. I stood up suddenly and pulled her into my arms. She gasped, not expecting it.

**"I'm home,"** I told her. **"I've come back to you, Charlotte. I promised you I would."**

Bella looked down at the script to see what happened next. Her lips moved slightly as she read along.

_Charlotte breaks into tears and Peter kisses her passionately. It is a kiss that takes her breath away. It is a kiss that makes up for lost time. It is a kiss that screams "I love you!" without actually saying the words._

Bella looked back up at me, and I took the script from her hand and dropped it in the grass. She wouldn't need it any more. The rest was up to me. I crashed my mouth to hers, and she took me in immediately. I loved kissing Bella more than anything in this entire world. It was like my lips knew it before the rest of me did, and that's why I kissed her as soon as I saw her at the bar that first day we met. The way our tongues moved sent sparks of desire through me like no other woman had been able to do. She was the last woman I ever wanted to kiss.

The scene called for my character to make love to Charlotte, but I wasn't going to push Bella that way. We hadn't made love since the night before the incident with Jake, but I never would complain. I missed her body and the way it felt to be connected that way, but she needed me for more important things besides sexual intimacy this week. Stress and tears wore her out by the end of the day, and it took almost all of her strength to make it into bed before she fell asleep each night.

Instead of doing what the script called for, I laid down on the blanket and pulled her on top of me so that I could hold her face above mine. My lips brushed against her mouth as I spoke the next line.

**"I've missed your smile."**

I rubbed my nose with hers softly.

**"I've missed the tip of your nose."**

I trailed the tips of my fingers over her eyelids, making them flutter.

**"I've missed your bright, beautiful eyes."**

I rolled us over, feeling her become weaker on top of me. Hovering so that I did not to put my weight on top of her, I continued.

**"I've missed being inside of you."**

I leaned down to kiss her, but she stopped me.

"Make love to me," Bella whispered.

I paused, realizing that she didn't understand I was reading the script, no matter how truthful these words were that I spoke. My head dropped in shame. She must have thought I was pressuring her.

"Bella, these are lines from the movie. I'm not pushing you."

"I know they're lines from the movie. I need you to make love to me, though. I _need_ you." Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. With a nod, I sat back on my knees as she got up to sit on hers. Our eyes never left one another as we slowly undressed ourselves. She needed me to make her feel better. Maybe this was the missing piece to her healing – having me there to make love to her in times of both happiness and sadness. I would always be there for her. I had to find a time to tell her I was never leaving her again once I was done filming this movie.

Once we were both naked, I laid her down on the blanket and positioned myself between her legs. The meadow and the surrounding forest was so quiet. We were one with nature.

"Don't stop with your lines," she said. "I promised to practice with you."

I agreed and pushed gently into her. We both sighed at the feeling of being one again. Her hips moved in synchronization with mine as I thrust into her slowly.

**"I've missed being inside of you,"** I repeated.

I nuzzled my face into the crease between her shoulder and neck and then nibbled at the area while I continued to move.

**"I've missed your neck and the taste of your skin right here."**

She was starting to breathe harder as I rocked into her, over and over. Being with Bella again in this way was so relaxing and...right. There was no other woman I had ever experienced this level of intimacy with before. And, there would be no other woman that I ever would experience this with again. Bella was it – the one – and I'd always known it. I returned my face to hers so that I could stare into her eyes.

Her breath was coming out in short bursts as her hands tightened on my back. She was close.

**"I've missed _you_,"** I said. **"Everything about you. I'm never leaving you again."**

Oh, how I wished I could say those words to her and have her know they were me and not Peter. She arched her back as much as she could under me, and her walls started tightening.

**"Never again will I leave your side or this bed – our bed**** – ****Charlotte,"** I panted. **"Never again will I love a woman the way I love you. You are all I dreamed of while I was away, and you are all I will ever need."**

"Edward," Bella breathed, her lips parted. She was so fucking close. _Let go, baby._

**"All I've ever needed, Bella," **I murmured the line in between labored thrusts.** "Everything I'll ever need for the rest of my life."**

I felt the spark ignite inside of me and rush toward my midsection. A groan escaped my mouth as I stared into her deep eyes as they stared back at me with the an expression of devotion and need, knowing she was coming undone underneath of me with me falling in step right behind her. A whimper passed through her lips.

**"Marry me."**

Locked with my own, her eyes widened for some reason as our orgasms exploded through our bodies at the same time. I pressed my lips to hers with unbridled passion being the driving force, feeling the need to have her mouth on mine. Mine. All mine. My Bella. My love. My life.

Even though we had both climaxed, we continued to lay on the blanket and kiss quietly, once again becoming as calm as the trees but as flowing as the wind. I wanted to stay in this meadow forever with her and never have to leave. But, when the sun started to go down, we sat up to start getting dressed. We needed to make our way through the forest before it was dark.

When we got back to the house, we went straight up to bed and laid down, exhausted from the week and our afternoon. As I drifted off to sleep, Bella appeared in my dreams.

She stood in this very room wrapped in a blanket overlooking her backyard which was covered in a thick layer of snow. The sun glinted off the ice crystals and created what looked like a halo around her head. She turned to me as I walked up behind her, and I saw she was smiling in a way I'd never seen before. She was complete again and so utterly happy. There had been a time when she was broken and sad, but I couldn't remember what it could have been. Everything but her and this moment and the snow had disappeared from my memory.

A happy tear rolled down her cheek from her sparkling chocolate eyes. I wiped it away with my thumb, and she laughed a tinkling laugh that was so carefree my heart soared. Then she spoke one word to me, and I felt my life become as complete as hers, though I didn't even know the question.

"Yes."

* * *

"Jane, are you sure I have to do this?" I switched what ear I had my cell phone on and flipped through my planner.

"It's your job, Edward," she said with more than a hint of aggravation. "You made a movie, and now you have to promote it."

I grumbled and scribbled "LA" into Friday and Saturday's squares and then ran my fingers through my hair when I saw "3 weeks" written in the Sunday square. I had just over three weeks left with Bella before I had to go back to Los Angeles to finish filming this movie. Time moved so fast sometimes. It wasn't fair.

"Why didn't I know about this sooner?" I asked. "What if I couldn't drop everything and get on that plane tomorrow?"

"I emailed you weeks ago about this. You never check your fucking account anymore. I've started putting receipts on them to know if you read them, and you never do!" I winced. She was really pissed at me. "Telling you the day before is your punishment for not giving a shit about your career anymore."

A red fire flamed behind my eyes at what she had said, and I shot up off of my couch in my trailer. "Why the fuck does everybody believe it is their right to punish me?!" I roared. "I'm so fucking sick of this goddamn business Jane! I'm sick of the shit I've had to put myself through to be perfect in everybody's eyes! I've...I've had it. I can't do this anymore!" With one strong, angry motion, I threw my phone against the wall and watched it shatter into a hundred tiny pieces on the carpet.

My body was shaking with rage. Hadn't I had to endure enough? My punishment with James had gone on longer than it should have, but I had no idea how to stop it. Going to the police was the sensible thing to do. My punishment at first was the pictures would be released along with the story that went with them. I was terrified of disappointing my family, and I was terrified of ruining my career. That's why I complied with his demands.

But, when I had started receiving the death threats as a new form of punishment, it had turned into something completely different. It was a form of imprisonment to where I couldn't step out of line at all when it came to James, or I could lose my life.

Countless times I had warred with myself to turn him in despite his threats, but my mind always drifted to how James wouldn't be in jail forever for coercion. It was a criminal offense, but it was not on the level of murder. Maybe I'd be free to live my life for 10 years. If he got bail, it could be less. Then what? Would I have a calendar counting down the weeks and days until he was released...the day he would hunt me down and kill me for my violation of the terms of this sick and sadistic "treaty" he had set?

There was no option that was better than the other. I could continue living my life in fear but knowing that if I did as I was told every day, I would live to see the next, or I could turn him in and live my life as I hoped and dreamed but know the exact day I was going to die.

The moment I fell in love with Bella, though, was the moment that I knew which option I was going to choose. I couldn't imagine knowing the exact day that I would be taken from her. There was no way I could leave her behind like that when I had the option to love her until we grew old together. The police couldn't know.

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

My head jerked to the door just in time to see Emmett walk through the door with his cell phone in his hand.

"Jane," he said, as he threw it to me. I caught it and reluctantly held it up to my ear.

"What?" I asked gruffly.

"Jesus, Edward," she breathed. I rolled my head on my neck and plopped down on the couch again. "What the hell has gotten into you?"

Emmett was leaning against the now closed door looking sympathetic. They'd obviously talked before he came in my trailer. "You'll never understand the significance of what you said to me, Jane, and how it affects me."

"Okay," she said quietly. "I'm sorry for whatever I said."

I leaned back and rested my head on the window behind the couch. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. You didn't mean it in viciously, and I should have known."

"Is there something that I should know?" she asked. Her voice made it sound like she was about to cry. She'd never been this upset or worried about me before, and her keen sense had definitely picked up that whatever was affecting me was a big deal.

"As my manager and my talking head, yes, you should know, but I'm not going to tell you. Maybe someday, but I can't tell you now."

She paused before responding softly. "I've been with you for a long time, Edward. I consider you a brother to me. And, I don't like this. As your manager, I would like to know what is going on so that I can help your career. As your honorary sibling, I would like to know what is going on so that I can be there to protect you."

I sighed. "I appreciate that, Jane, and I agree that I've always considered you to be a sister to me, but my brother is here, okay?" I looked up at him, and met his eyes. "Emmett has protected me more than you could imagine. I've not been going through this alone since I confided in him."

"Alright," she said quietly. "Whenever, if ever, you're ready to tell me, I'll drop whatever I'm doing to listen and figure it out with you."

"Thank you," I replied. "I'll see you tomorrow."

We hung up, and Emmett and I walked back to the set together silently.

That night when Marcus dropped me off at Bella's house, I met her in the kitchen. She'd reopened the bookstore today, but I hadn't gotten to talk to her since the morning because of my now busted phone. I would pick up a new one tomorrow in Los Angeles, but first I had to tell her.

"Hey, honey," I said as I kissed her. She leaned into my kiss, clearly tired after a long day. "Let me take care of dinner tonight," I said. With a simple nod from her, I pulled her into the living room and laid her down on the couch with the television remote. Walking back into the kitchen, I knew exactly what I wanted to make.

Arms loaded with the numerous ingredients, I dropped them on the counter. The noodles were boiling on the stove and were ready to be strained in the sink. When I returned the noodles to the pot, I added and stirred and taste tested until it tasted just like Bella had made that night we declared our love for each other.

I filled two bowls with the steaming dish and headed into the living room. Bella sat up when I came in, and rubbed her eyes.

"Macaroni and cheese from scratch except the noodles," I said proudly. She smirked and took the bowl from me so I could join her on the adjoining cushion.

"Should I be scared?" she asked, looking down at the creamy, golden goodness.

I feigned irritation and then dug my fork into my bowl, blew on it and placed it at her lips. "You tell me."

She opened her mouth, and I plunged the fork in. When her lips closed around the tines, so did her eyes. "Mmmmm," she groaned and chewed. "Damn, baby. That's better than mine."

My smile was uncontrollable. I had mastered macaroni and cheese, a true test of being a good cook. They should have a celebrity edition of Top Chef. Though it didn't matter because in two months time, I would be a Regular Joe living in Forks with the woman of my dreams.

I'd thought about what I would do once I quit acting. I hadn't gone to college because I'd landed my first role when I was in high school, so I probably would have to do something on my own that didn't require a degree. Going to college did cross my mind, but when I saw how busy Bella was with the store and spending time with me, I realized that she never wrote anymore.

A guilt overtook me because I knew that writing was what she loved. My mind was made up instantly. I would help her run the bookstore so she would have more time for her future projects. She'd said before that she didn't have anyone to open the store for her if she was gone, so that's what I'd do. I'd be her reprieve.

When we were finished, I set the bowls on the coffee table and had her lay down so that her head was in my lap.

"Honey?" I said.

"Yeah," she whispered. My gentle massage on her neck and scalp was lulling her into sleep.

"I found out earlier today that I have to go to LA tomorrow and Saturday."

My hands were pushed aside as she sat up to look at me. All the sparkle in her eyes was gone.

"Why?" she asked sadly.

"I have to do a press junket with...with Tanya...for our movie that premieres next month."

"Tanya," she murmured. Her eyes were trained down in her lap, so I pulled her onto mine so that I could coax her to look at me.

"You trust me, don't you?" I asked.

Her head snapped up, and her eyes met mine. "With all of my heart," she replied with such sincerity that it blew me away. "I know that you love me and only me."

"I do," I confirmed. "And, you love me and only me, and I'll carry that wherever I am, okay?

"Okay," she said.

"I'm sorry to be away from you, especially when you need me the most, but I've gone ahead and asked Emmett to watch out for you. I think Rosalie is even going to come Saturday to hang out at the bookstore. I hate that I'll be gone until late Saturday night, but I'm coming back. I promise you."

That night we fell asleep on the couch in each others' arms, until her phone alarm went off at three in the morning, signaling the day I'd have to leave her again. It was too early to have her go to the airport with me, so after I took my shower and packed a small bag, I carried her and her phone upstairs and put her into bed before taking off her pants so she would be more comfortable. Positioning myself parallel to her on the mattress, I brushed my hand down the side of her head and kissed her lips until she stirred.

"Edward?" she whispered groggily.

"I'm here, Bella, but I've got to get going."

"Don't go," she whimpered. This hurt me so much. Bella was half awake and half asleep. There was no way she'd remember this when her alarm went off in five hours for her to go to work.

"I won't be gone for long, love. If you need me while I'm away, just call me. I'll have a new phone sometime this morning."

"Mmmhmm," she mumbled in the most adorable way.

With one more kiss on her temple, I got out of bed knowing that if I didn't leave now, I'd stay in that bed with her all day. Since she'd have no recollection of me leaving, I found a small piece of paper, wrote a note and placed it on my pillow.

"Edward?" she whispered, stopping me on my way out the door. I turned around and saw that her eyes were still closed in the darkness. She was still talking in her sleep. "My answer is yes."

My breath caught in my throat because she was answering my unknown question again just like the dream the other night. I wracked my brain trying to remember what I had asked of her to make her answer me with a yes. I didn't know if this was a good yes or a bad yes. Focusing in on her face again, though, I noticed that she was smiling. If that was any indication, it was a good yes.

"Thank you," I whispered to her. "I'll love you forever, Bella."

Once downstairs, I set the alarm on her front door and shut it behind me. Marcus took my bag, and I settled into the backseat to be taken to the airport in Port Angeles.

* * *

After a brief stop off at home to make sure everything was still good and an even briefer stop at the cell phone store, I was ready to head to the hotel where I would meet Jane and Tanya for the press junket. These were beyond grueling. By the end of the day, you were lucky if you walked out of there with a voice. What sucked was I had to turn around and do it all again tomorrow for most of the day.

Jane met me outside the hotel entrance and led me through the photographers up to the suite. I didn't get five steps into the room before I heard the voice of a she-devil.

"Edward, darling. Let's never wait this long to see each other again."

I don't know what the sound was that left my mouth, but it sounded something like "Psshh!" It meant, "Bitch, you're fuckin' crazy!"

The key to keeping your voice in this things was to stay hydrated, so I walked over to the refreshment table and started chugging a bottle of water. Jane handed me a schedule while I was drinking, and then I felt _her_ hand on my left arm as I was reviewing who was interviewing us. I shook my shoulder, trying to get her to drop her talons, but she only squeezed harder.

"Tanya!" I snapped. "Hands off!"

Several people's heads turned to see what my outburst was about, but Tanya just smiled and patted my cheek with her hand. Bella's cheek pats were the only ones I ever wanted to feel again. I was already disgusted by Tanya, and we had approximately 16 hours of close proximity ahead of us. Her head would be ripped from her body if she didn't back the fuck off.

Ten minutes later we were sitting on the couch next to each other with a camera crew in front of us and a male interviewer in the chair.

"Let's talk about your sexual chemistry in this movie. I saw it last night, and there seemed to be something raw under the surface," he said.

Tanya decided this was going to be her question. "Of course. There were many nights of running lines and practicing to make it perfect. Especially the sex scenes. Those got lots of practice behind the scenes." She finished by winking at the interviewer.

If it wouldn't have been caught on camera, I would have groaned and dropped my head back on the couch. This was going to be awful. The amount of damage control I would have to do with Bella would be astronomical, but it would be worth it because she was worth it.

"Now, Edward. How much of yourself did you put into this role?"

An automatic answer was already generated in my head. I used it for every movie, despite the role. Nobody really gave a shit what the answer was to the question. They just wanted my face so they could get hits on their videos. But, I thought I'd mix it up this time and give an actual answer.

"There was a time that I probably couldn't tell you the difference between myself and my character Liam. He found himself in a situation with Tanya's Makenna that he couldn't get out of. When he realized the mistake he made, it was too late."

"Care to elaborate on that?" he asked, with a smirk. He thought he had something juicy, and he did, but that was all he was getting.

"Nope," I answered curtly. "I answered the question." His face turned down. The man was obviously a little angry but a little disappointed, too.

"Tanya, can you explain the storyline of the movie to our viewers?"

"Sure," she quipped. I felt her move ever so slightly closer to me on the couch, and I wanted to vomit. "Liam is a happily married man who finds out his wife is cheating, so he decides to get back at her by sleeping with Makenna, a sexy friend of hers. As the sexual affair grows more intense, they start getting sloppy and people find out. Everybody knows except his wife. The kicker is, she never cheated to begin with. He's in way too deep and can't get out without destroying her and himself."

The movie was brilliant and intriguing, but why the hell did I ever have to agree to do it? If I'd have turned it down, I never would have been in the position I was in right now. I never would have slept with Tanya, and James wouldn't ever have been in the picture.

The rest of the morning went just as bumpy as the first interview. Tanya inched closer to me with every break. As soon as Jane came in and said it was lunch, I bolted off the couch and ran out of the room. One more interviewer and she would have been on my lap.

I found my new cell phone and checked for texts or voicemails from Bella, but there were none. That was surprising. I wouldn't lie and say I wasn't disappointed that she didn't call after reading the note I left. I found her number and hit Send, and waited for it to start ringing.

"_Hey, this is Bella. Leave me a message and I'll call ya back as soon as I can. Hope your day is as great as mine!"_ That message never ceased to bring a smile to my face, though it was rare that I ever got to it. She almost always answered her phone.

"Hey, baby. I hadn't heard from you today. Maybe you thought I wouldn't have my new cell phone, yet? I don't know. But, I miss you, and want you to know that I love you. Give me a call when you can. Love you. Bye."

The call had gone straight to her voicemail, so it was either off or she let the battery die on it. I'd call her again later and see if she would answer. If she forgot her charger at home, I probably wouldn't get to talk to her until tonight because I didn't have the number to her store.

Interviewers were just as brutal in the afternoon as they were in the morning with the same question after the same question. By the end of the first day, I was spent. Jane needed a ride back to the office, so I offered to have Marcus drop her off before I had him drive me home.

During the car ride, Jane told me that she would be coming up to Forks next week to check out the set and see what Aro had seen in the town that made him want to film there. Then, she pulled a script from her bag and dropped it in my lap. "Got this delivered yesterday. I'd spoken to you about it a few months ago. It's an excellent screenplay. I think you'll want to sign on as soon as you read the first page."

I picked it up and dropped it back in her lap, causing her to stare at me in shock. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want to do it," I said simply. She'd find out eventually that I was quitting, but I didn't want to tell her in the back of a moving vehicle. It would be my luck that she'd open my door and push me out into oncoming traffic.

"You haven't even read it!"

"Doesn't matter. I don't want to do it."

"This movie could be your Oscar, Edward. They wrote the part for you! It's epic!"

Leaning toward her in the back of the sedan, I spoke the words a little slower and clearer for her. "I. Don't. Want. To. Do. It."

As soon as Marcus pulled up outside the office, she stormed out and slammed the door behind her.

"What was that about?" he asked.

"Oh, there's a part that was written for me, but I'm just not interested in it. She doesn't understand why I'd turn it down, but I've got my reasons."

"Reasons, sir? The part sounded promising. Seems like you are throwing away a good opportunity."

This was the most Marcus had ever truly talked to me about my job, which was saying something. He never seemed interested before. "Yeah, maybe, but what does it all matter?"

"I don't understand, sir."

"Acting. It's all fame and fortune and no real satisfaction anymore."

"You're not happy?"

"No, I'm incredibly happy, but not with my career. Acting doesn't fulfill my needs like it used to. The fame is a hassle, and I mean, what's the point? For the money? I've made enough and invested wisely enough that I never have to work another day in my life. I wake up in a different city every two or three months and live out of a suitcase. I never get to be myself because I'm busy playing someone else. My house sits vacant three quarters of the year. Where's the joy I used to feel? Where's the passion for my job?"

"Excuse me if I'm prying, Mr. Cullen, but it sounds like you're ready to quit."

I shrugged. "Maybe it sounds that way because that's what it is." I looked up at him to find his surprised expression looking back at me in the rearview mirror. "When I met Bella, everything about me changed for the better. Who I used to be isn't who I am now. People change. Wants and needs change. When I look in the mirror, I want to see me, Marcus. I don't want to see someone dressed in era clothing with makeup on. When I wake up, I want to wake up at a decent hour and then go downstairs and burn bacon and cut open eggs with steak knives every single morning." He gave me another odd expression, but I went on because he'd never understand. "And, when I say that I want those things, I actually _need_ those things...I need Bella in the mirror next to me. I need Bella to walk downstairs and tell me it's alright that I burnt the bacon again. I just need Bella."

It was then, during our brief moment of silence after what I had declared, that I realized we'd never left the curb.

"Back to the house?" he asked, shifting the gear into drive.

"Back to the house," I confirmed. On our way, I thought about a phone call I'd made earlier during one of my brief breaks. "Hey, do you think you could pick me up at eight instead of nine tomorrow morning?"

"Of course, sir. Doing something before the junket?"

"Yeah," I smiled. "There's somewhere I need to go."

As soon as I got settled, I called Bella's cell phone. It went straight to voicemail again. I left her another message and called Emmett's phone because I didn't know her number at the house, either. Neither of the landlines were something I put into my phone for some reason. That would need remedied right away once I got back.

"Brother," he said as his greeting.

"Emmett, did Bella break her phone or something?"

"I don't know," he said.

"I've tried calling her a few times today, and it keeps going to her voicemail. When you saw her, did she say anything about leaving it at home or breaking it?"

"I...uhhhh...didn't see her today, Edward. We got really busy. I never had the chance to break away--"

I hung up on him immediately, and scrolled through my phone looking for Ben's number. I was so grateful that my SIM card didn't break when I smashed it against the wall. This way I still had his number.

"Hello?" a deep-voiced man answered. Then he coughed into the receiver, making me move the phone away from my ear.

"Ben?" I asked.

"Yeah," he croaked.

"Did you see Bella at the shop today by chance? I've been trying to reach her, and her phone goes straight to voicemail."

"I'm sorry, Edward, but Angela and I are both sick again and didn't go into work. There's something going around. Probably the weather. I think we got it from Alice, Jasper and Brandon. They all have it, too."

"Oh," I said, surprised. "Well, maybe Bella is sick."

"I bet that's it. We can barely move. She probably just hasn't had the strength to get to her phone or charge it if it's dead. I wouldn't worry about it." He coughed again and groaned.

"Alright," I said. "Get well."

"She's probably just sick," I said out loud trying to assure myself once we'd hung up. If she was sick, then it sounded like it was pretty bad. Continuing to call her when her phone wouldn't work anyways would be futile. I could always call Ben back and get her home number, but I would feel guilty waking her if she was trying to sleep it off. I decided to give her until tomorrow, and then I'd try calling her again.

The next morning, I woke up and made a quick phone call to my destination to confirm my appointment. Thirty minutes later, I was in the car on the way. Marcus pulled up to the back entrance, and I was met by a woman that looked to be in her 60s in a blue suit.

"I'm Beth. It's nice to meet you Mr. Cullen." She held out her hand, and I took it in a gentle shake.

"Please call me Edward. Thank you for opening the store early for a private viewing. You have no idea what a media circus this would have made if anybody saw me here. Plus, I want it to be a surprise for her."

Beth smiled. "It's our pleasure, Edward. We're here to make this gift as special as we possibly can for the woman in your life. Do you have anything in mind?"

She led me up to the first glass case, and I bent over to look at the sparkling diamonds of all shapes, sizes and colors. "Something classic. Maybe something antique-style or vintage? Whatever jewelers call it."

"Price range?"

"However high I need to go to find the one."

She smiled again. There was no denying that she worked on commission. Beth would be making a pretty penny off of me today.

"Let me pull out a few rings and see what you think of them. It will give me a better idea." Her hand reached into the case from the open door on her side, and I shook my head at the first ring her fingers touched. They withdrew and went to one a few down. She rested the ring on the leather tray in front of me, and I picked it up to examine it. Another ring was placed on the tray immediately after, and I picked it up to compare. Neither looked...right. The first one was too small, I explained, and I didn't like the yellow gold of the second one. I sat them both back down, and she replaced them back in their velvet confines behind the glass before moving to the next case.

"I recommend platinum for the metal of your ring. It's naturally white and wears better than white gold. White gold will need to be rhodium-plated every couple of years to maintain its white appearance. All gold is naturally yellow."

She took out two more rings and placed them on another tray. The first stone was a round solitaire with an intricate band, and while it was pretty, it didn't seem like Bella. The second was a very large square diamond solitaire, which the jeweler called a princess cut, but I didn't like that, either. It was classic but too modern.

"Anything with more than one diamond?" I asked.

"Let's look at this case," she said, while she waved me over. That's when I saw it.

"That one," I declared with my eyes and my finger. She stuck her hand in and moved her finger over the rings until it landed on the one I had my eye on.

"Nice choice, Mr. Cullen," she smiled. "This is an Asscher cut diamond set in platinum. The center stone is two and a half carats and the surrounding diamonds around the center stone and on the band equal another one and a half carats. Classic and vintage."

"And perfectly her," I said. Bella was the rock in this new group of people I had become friends with so quickly. She was the boldest and the strongest and most interesting of all of us, and we circled her in love because she made us better just by doing something that felt natural and easy. She was a classic beauty, and she held this grace about her that hearkened back to another time.

This was the ring for which I would ask Isabella Swan to marry me.

"Ring it up," I laughed, my cheesy joke making her crack a smile. She'd probably heard that a million times. "I can't believe I found it so quickly. I thought this would take so much longer."

"When you see the one, you just know it," she said.

"That is the truth," I sighed, not meaning the ring.

After signing the paperwork and receipts, she handed the bag to me over the counter. "Congratulations, Mr. Cullen. You're going to make this young lady very happy. Good luck with everything."

"Thank you."

When Marcus dropped me off at the hotel, I realized I had 25 minutes left before the start of the interviews, so I found a quiet corner in the lobby and sat down just to relax. The ring box was burning a hole in my pocket, so I though I'd take one more look. As I went to pull it out, my phone rang and I jumped. \I noticed that I didn't recognize the number but it did say it was a Washington area code. Bella must have broken her phone and not been able to keep her number for some reason.

"Hello," I answered.

"Edward?" This wasn't Bella's voice, but it was female.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"It's Rosalie. I'm at the bookstore like I said I'd be, but Bella's not here. It looks like she never opened today. Emmett gave me your number. Have you talked to her since you called him last night?"

"No," I replied. "Ben said she might be sick. I stopped trying to reach her."

"That's weird," she muttered. "She usually tells one of us if she's sick. You'd think she'd tell you."

"I thought so, too, but Ben said that what he had was really bad, and everybody else had it, too."

"Hmmm," she contemplated. Then I heard a male voice in the background. As the person got closer I could hear what he was saying.

"I've been trying to call Bella all morning. Did she not open today?" the man asked.

"I don't know, Charlie," Rosalie replied. It was Bella's father. "Edward and I were just trying to figure out where she is right now. He's in LA through tonight."

Charlie wasted no time before continuing. "Jake was released yesterday morning. He fired his court appointed lawyer and hired a big shot from Seattle. This guy found a discrepancy in the way the case was filed, and the judge had no choice but to release him on bail. I just found out. We need to find her. Right now."

I didn't wait any longer before I was out the door of the hotel hunting down Marcus and the car to take us back to the airport. Fuck the press junket. Fuck Jane. Fuck Tanya and her tantrum she was liable to throw for me leaving her there alone. Fuck this goddamn town and all of the problems it brought me. I should have trusted my instincts that something was wrong when I hadn't heard from her, for the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach told me that something _had_ happened.

And, it would be my fault...all my fault.

_Please God, don't let Jake have hurt her._

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AUTHORS END NOTE: **

Well, that was a pretty interesting chapter. Bella is working through her issues and seems to be doing a fairly good job at it.

And, then Edward goes off and proposes to her without even knowing it! Argh! You said Bella instead of Charlotte, Edward! Duh! That's why she's told you "yes" twice. She seems to know it was a slip of the tongue, a Freudian Slip at that, but we can rest easy knowing that Edward does now have a ring. And, no, you won't be seeing it anytime soon. Maybe never because it seems that...

Bella is missing. Do you think Jake hurt her? He did last chapter. Because of her, he was in jail for almost two weeks. It's not looking too good for Bella right now.

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**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	19. Chapter 19 The Hunt

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

**WOOOOW! The response last week was insane! Considering I started out with 266 reviews before I updated, I'm in awe. Look at that number up there!  
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**Thank you, each and every one of you. You make me feel like I'm doing something right with this story. Think you can bring that kind of response again?  
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Rated M: angst, language, violence, lemons.

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When we left off last chapter, Edward found out that Jake had been released from jail, and now he's rushing back to Forks to search for a missing Bella.

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**Chapter 19**

**The Hunt**

_Oh, dear God. Please be okay, baby._

My head had been buried in the airplane toilet for a good twenty minutes. There was nothing left to come out of my stomach, but the heaves continued. Never in my life had I been this scared. Nothing compared to this, and that included the threatening of my own life.

Take _my_ life. Don't take hers. Jake threatened _me_ with death. Not Bella.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

"Mr. Cullen, are you okay in there?" Marcus asked through the door. "You've been in there for a while."

"I'm puking my guts out," I grumbled loud enough so that he could hear me. The roar of the plane was so much louder in the bathroom compared to the cabin. It was really messing with my head.

"I'm sure Bella's fine," he said. "Clean up and come back to your seat. I'll have the flight attendant get you some 7-Up for your stomach."

"Thank you, Marcus," I said. I pulled myself up off the floor and hunched over in front of the mirror with my hands on the counter. My eyes were bloodshot, and my face was covered in sweat. It went without mentioning that my mouth tasted like ass. "She's got to be okay," I muttered to my haggard reflection, half expecting it to throw a punch at my face for leaving her alone. If it accomplished this feat of the supernatural, I'd have let it knock me out for all I cared.

As I made my way back to the seat unsteadily, I checked my watch for the time. We would be landing in Seattle in thirty minutes. In my mad dash to the airport, I had called Emmett and had him charter a private jet from the Sea-Tac Airport to land at the small airport in Forks. He would be waiting there to pick us up.

What was killing me, besides not knowing where Bella had been for the past 30 hours, was that I didn't know what was going on right now. I didn't know if the police had gone to the house and found her there sick in bed or if she actually was missing. My stomach churned again at the latter, and I had to lean forward to put my head between my knees. Thirty hours was a long time. It was too long. So much could happen in that time. It was long enough for me to fall in love with Bella, and it was long enough for her to be taken away from me.

I was going to be sick again.

The businessman to my left was eyeing me suspiciously out of the side of his newspaper. To the regular person not in my situation, it looked like I was afraid of flying, and his Calvin Klein suit wouldn't look good with my vomit all over it. Sadly, I was not sick because of a fear of flying. The love of my life could be hurt...or worse.

The fasten seatbelt sign came on and the pilot had the flight attendants go around and check the cabin for landing. My leg bounced rapidly as the plane touched down, and I was up and out of my seat as soon as we slowed down and stopped jostling. There was nowhere for me to go because we had to taxi to the gate, but I was going to be the first person off this plane if my life depended on it. And, it did.

Running through the terminal with Marcus right behind me, to where I knew a car would be waiting to take us to the private jet, I called Emmett for the status.

"I can't get any information, Edward. The police have this sealed up tight. I'm trying to explain to them who I am to her, but they don't care. Rose and I are out driving all over town looking for her here. We went back to the bookstore and nothing. Charlie went out to the house, but we haven't heard if he found her."

The acid in my stomach was coming up with each word he said. If the police wouldn't say what was going on, they hadn't found her. Something was wrong, and it was all my fault.

This 30-minute flight was worse. We were so close to her, yet still so far away. Each minute seemed like an eternity as I stared out at the small oval window at the vibrant expanse below. She could be anywhere. There were so many places of this area that I didn't know about -- so many places that nobody knew about. The forest held too many secrets in its cold emerald paradise.

When we started making our descent, I felt like my lungs were being crushed. This was it. Once outside this plane, I would be in the hunt for Bella, and I wouldn't slow down until I found her. My first stop was the house.

"Emmett, tell me something. Anything," I said, as I flung myself into the backseat with Marcus.

"I...I...don't know, Edward," his voice cracked. "Rose called the hospital, and there's nobody there that matches her description. We knew her dad went out to her house, but he left. We passed him on the road right before we left town to come pick you up."

"Emmett," I whispered, my head falling into my hands. "Nothing can happen to her."

Rosalie reached back and grabbed my hand to try to comfort me. "Bella is strong, Edward. Let's try to have faith that she has been able to take care of herself if Jake has actually gotten to her. She may be fine. Charlie could have found her at the house and that's why he left."

Her words did nothing to comfort me. I knew in my gut that something happened to Bella. She would have called me if she was sick. She would have pushed herself to the limits to talk to me. All I had was silence and unreturned voicemail messages.

As we sped up the driveway, my heart dropped to my feet when I saw the police cars at the house. Before Emmett even had the car stopped, I was out and running to the front door. Garrett, the officer that had been on the sidewalk during our confrontation with James, stopped me from going any further through the door.

"I can't let you go in there," he said with authority. "This is a crime scene."

"What?!" I screamed. "Crime scene?! What...what...what do you mean?!" Nothing but breathless stutters could come out of my mouth. Emmett, Rosalie and Marcus came running up behind me.

"Where the hell is Bella?!" Emmett yelled, taking over for my voice.

"Calm down," Garrett said sternly. "We didn't find her. She's not here."

"Then why is it a crime scene?!" I asked.

"The house was broken into. They're collecting evidence."

I had to grab the door frame to keep standing, and that's when I noticed the broken splinters of the door and the frame on the floor along with the shattered glass panels. Jake had broken into the house. He had to have her. "The surveillance tapes," I croaked. "When did he take her?"

"They're reviewing them now. We have you leaving the house at 3:49 a.m. yesterday morning and Jake breaking down the door at 9:32 a.m., thirty minutes after he was released on bail. He exited at 9:47."

"When they left, did she look scared? Answer me," I begged.

"No." He looked surprised and then stood up a little straighter. "She wasn't with him. She was at the residence when you left yesterday morning?"

My eyes widened. "Of course she was! She didn't leave between the time I left the house and the time he broke in?!"

"No."

"How?" Emmett breathed. My mind was racing, as was his.

"Back entrance cameras?" I asked quickly.

"Nothing," Garrett answered.

"Driveway camera?"

"Only your car and Jake's car." His voice lowered to a whisper as if he was reasoning with himself. "We've checked every room. We've checked them twice. We thought...we figured she couldn't have been at the house."

She was in bed when I left. She'd never left either of the entrances. Jake came in and left without her.

"She is in this fucking house!" I yelled, pushing past Garrett. He let me through without any restraint and started talking into his radio.

"Dispatch, Bella's got to be in the house. Her boyfriend said she was here when he left yesterday morning. She never left. Send an ambulance. She may be injured."

I ran up the stairs toward her bedroom with Emmett and Rosalie on my heels because that was where I'd taken her. Sprinting into the room, my heart stopped and so did my feet. An officer was walking around with gloves on and was taking pictures of the completely destroyed room. The side tables were overturned, and the lamps were busted against the wall. Her armoire was broken, and all of the clothes were strewn across the room. And, her covers were ripped off the bed except for one pillow.

My pillow. My pillow with the note on it. My pillow with the note on it, and a large knife stabbed through the center of my words._ I'll love you forever – every day of forever._

"Oh, my God!" Rosalie screamed, burying her face in Emmett's shoulder.

I couldn't breathe. My air was gone because she was gone. She had to be here, but I couldn't feel her presence anywhere.

Garrett came running upstairs with two more officers. "Downstairs is clear. She has to be up here somewhere." His words were all it took for it to hit me, and the force of the realization almost knocked me to the ground. My head snapped up and looked at the corner of the room, to the curtain that hid a door that only Bella and I knew about.

"Bella!" I yelled, as I jumped over the mess on the floor, slinging the curtains to the side. Bursting through the door and flipping on the light switch, my eyes fell upon her body curled up in the fetal position in the opposite corner of the room, shaking vigorously. I was on the floor beside her in a second.

"Baby," I nearly cried, pulling her limp body into my lap. Her eyes were swollen and she was sweating so profusely that her clothes were almost soaked through. "Bella, what's wrong? What did he do to you?" I asked frantically.

"I'm going to check her," Rosalie spoke, as she got down on the floor on the opposite side of her quickly. Bella's eyes were barely open, but she was looking right at me. Rosalie was holding her wrist and referencing her watch.

"One-forty!" she said exclaimed. "That's way too high!" Her hand went to Bella's forehead. "Good God, she's burning up. We need to get her in a lukewarm bath until the paramedics get here. Emmett! Start a bath! Not too hot and not too cold! We can't shock her body temperature!"

"I'm sorry," I mouthed to her, barely able to speak. She was so weak in my arms. Had he hurt her and then she crawled into this room to protect herself from more or had she gotten in here before he'd gotten upstairs but had been too sick to leave?

Rosalie was quickly checking over her skin as I held onto her. "No bruises. No scratches," she whispered. She took her hands and looked at her nails. "No blood or skin."

"I love you," I mouthed, and I felt the smallest bit of a nod come from her head against my arm and chest.

Garrett got on the radio. "We found Bella. She's in a hidden room off her bedroom, and something is wrong. What's the ETA on that ambulance?"

"Seven minutes," the dispatcher answered back.

I stood up from the floor quickly and ran her out of the room and across the clothes and over her shattered cell phone into the bathroom. My eyes didn't leave hers for even a second. When I reached the tub, I bent over to put her in, but her hold on me tightened almost to the point that it hurt. She clawed at my shirt, at my skin, trying to grasp onto anything that she could. How did she have this much strength?

Ruined wallet and brand new cell phone be damned, I crawled into the water without the slightest bit of hesitation with her wrapped around me because she _needed_ me. Water splashed around our submerged bodies as she shook violently against every square inch of me that she could touch.

"Somebody get a cold bottle of water," I said as evenly as I could, brushing wet hair out of her face. "She's got to be dehydrated."

I wanted to break down and cry and rock her back and forth because I had found her this way, but she needed me to be strong for her right now. She hadn't had anybody there to just hold her when she needed it without them needing to be held onto themselves since her mom had died.

Emmett ran back in the room less than a minute later and handed me an opened bottle of water. I held it to her trembling lips and poured it in slowly so that she could swallow it easily. Rosalie continued to check over her body as I helped her drink, looking for any signs of abuse. I watched with relief as life began to come back into her eyes with every sip.

"Baby," I whispered. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," she croaked. Her face became strained as soon as the word left her mouth. Her hand came up and wrapped around the glands of her throat.

"Sore?" I asked. She nodded. "From being sick?" _Please don't say he choked you._ She nodded again.

"Answer by shaking your head for me when I ask you these questions, okay?" She nodded again. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Garrett pull out his notepad to take notes for the case.

"Were you asleep when he broke in?" _Yes._

"Were you staying home because you were sick?"_ Yes._

"Did you hear the door break?" _Yes._

"Did the alarm on the door go off?" _Yes._

"Did you run into your library before he got up the stairs?" _Yes._

"Did he know where you were?" _No._

"Was he yelling for you?" _Yes._

"Was he yelling for me?" _No._

"Did you know it was Jake?" _Yes. _She began to tremble more, but it had nothing to do with her sickness. She was beginning to get frightened.

"Were you afraid he was going to kill you?" Her lip quivered, and that was enough of an answer for me.

Just then a man burst into the bathroom wearing a dark jacket. He was maybe six feet tall with dark brown hair, a mustache and familiar brown eyes. His jacket was emblazoned with a police badge on the left and a "C. SWAN" on the right. This was Charlie Swan, Bella's dad. He was on the floor next the tub as soon as he saw her.

"Bells, what did he do to you?" he asked, sweeping his hand from her forehead and over the top of her head. It was something a father would do to comfort his child and bring them peace.

She shook her head and relaxed into my arms. Her trembling had ceased. It had completely stopped in one instant. "He didn't hurt me," she said as strongly as she could without showing any pain.

My heart sank. She was hiding it from him again. I wanted to argue with her and tell her how stupid it was to hide her suffering because he had brought her into this world and had raised her and soothed her tears from infancy through her adolescence. This was the man that danced with her to "Brown Eyed Girl," probably because she shared the same eyes as him and she made him proud. He should be her father now and bring her comfort, not cause her mind to become shrouded in fear that he would revert back into a depression.

But those thoughts stopped as soon as the paramedics came into the room.

They had Emmett and Marcus step out as Rosalie rattled off her symptoms and her heart rate.

"Sweetie, we're going to lift you out of the tub, okay?" I recognized the man that spoke above us immediately. It was Joshua from the night that Jake had first hurt her.

"No," she whimpered, holding onto me tighter.

Like someone had flipped a switch, Bella's trembling ensued again as she held onto me. A realization hit me like a ton of bricks and nearly gave me whiplash. She was only herself when she was with me – nobody else. It had taken until that horrible night at the beach, but she no longer hid anything from me, and that was something you couldn't even say about her best friends. She allowed me to comfort her when she was in pain. Bella's weaknesses were on display for me to witness no matter how humiliating they were for her to show. It was if she was crying, "I need you to help me."

And, I would. Forever I would.

"I'll get her out," I said. We sat up, and after I stood, I picked her up and sat her on the gurney they had in the bedroom. They covered her nearly nude body which I had held close to my chest in a thick grey blanket before moving. Water dripped from my clothing and from the tips of her hair as they wheeled my life down the stairs and out the front door into the cold air. Her hand never left mine. She was shivering so hard that I wanted to crawl onto the gurney with her and warm her with my body heat, but I knew that they wouldn't allow that because they had work to do.

Joshua let me climb into the back of the ambulance, and I was quickly joined by her father who sat next to me, while we ran our hands over her bare skin trying to create some friction for warmth. Another paramedic handed me another blanket, and I covered her again, hoping it would help. She needed to get out of those clothes.

"I'm so sorry," Charlie gasped all of a sudden. Bella's eyes went to his, as did mine, and what I saw shocked the hell out of me. He was crying. "I'm so sorry I didn't know how he was treating you. How long has this been going on?"

"Don't be sorry, dad," she whispered weakly. "I never told you. There was no way you could have known. This violence of his is new. He's never been this way before."

He took her slightly shaking hand and held it in his. "We've got WSP's out looking for him. We think he fled. If I ever get my hands on him..." he trailed off.

"What about you and Billy?" Bella asked. Once again, she was worried about her dad and his well-being over her own.

"He's my best friend. I won't deny that. But, you're my daughter, and I won't put up with it if he defends his son's actions and the way he's treated you. I've avoided Billy since the night Jake hurt you on the beach, and he's done the same to me. Our friendship is up in the air as of right now."

"Dad," Bella sighed sympathetically. "Billy isn't to blame for Jake's actions. He raised him right. This is all Jake. Don't take it out on your friend. Jake is all he's got left. Maybe Billy is hurting more than he wants to admit." Her gaze flickered to mine briefly as a moment of understanding passed between us silently.

When we arrived at Forks Hospital, the doctors took her into an exam room to run some blood tests to see what she had so they could give her the right medication. Twenty minutes later we were allowed in to see her. She had an IV in her hand that administered fluids for her dehydration. They also had given her an antibiotic to fight the bacterial infection that had overtaken her. As it was, she would have been back to one hundred percent within a couple of days if she had had the option of lying in bed under the covers with an endless supply of clear liquids at her disposal. But she had been in that room all alone, with no food or water and no blankets to warm her body, which was only covered in a t-shirt and underwear.

She was exhausted and barely keeping her eyes open, so we waited until she fell asleep and then went out into the hallway so that she could rest.

"I'm Edward," I said to him, extending my hand. Charlie looked at it for a second before taking it and pulling me to his chest for a hug. This wasn't a man hug like male friends would share where only a few square inches of their bodies touched. This was another human being needing to be calmed after a distressing event. I sighed and wrapped my arms around him because I wouldn't deny that I needed a hug like this, too; a strong hug from a father to a child. And, that's what we were. He was a father, and I was a child.

"Thank you so much for finding her," he said. "You have no idea how scared I've been these past hours."

"Yes, I do have an idea," I told him. "I love your daughter more than I ever thought I could love someone. I got on a plane just as soon as I heard you say that Jake had been released. These have been the scariest moments of my life."

He finally loosened his grip on me, and we took a step back to lean against the wall outside her room. "I...I never thought there would be anything scarier than the night of the accident," he said all of a sudden. My head snapped over to him, surprised by what he had said. "Both instances I didn't have any control. The accident had already happened, and Renee was already gone. This time, Bella was already gone, and I didn't know where to begin to look for her. She's all I've got left," his voice cracked.

"Charlie," I whispered, and he looked over at me with more tears in his eyes. "I'm not going to let anything happen to her. I won't let her be taken away from you. If she's taken away from you, she's taken away from me."

"You're going to make her move to LA, though," he stated as fact. "You're going to take her away from me that way."

My head shook automatically. "No. She belongs here, and so do I. I've known since I came back to Forks that that part of my life was over. Acting is only a job, and as soon as my last press event is over for this movie, I'm done. Bella and Forks are where I belong."

He stared at me in surprise, and then I heard feet pounding on the tile behind me. Looking over my left shoulder, I saw Rosalie and Emmett running down the hall. "Is she okay?" Rosalie asked breathlessly, giving Charlie a hug. Emmett gave me a hug and then Rosalie switched to me and blanched at my wet clothes.

"She's sleeping now, but she's going to be alright," I said into her hair.

"Come on," she said, taking my hand. "Let's get you into some scrubs. You're going to catch a cold and be in her state if we don't get you out of those."

A couple of minutes later, I walked out into the hallway in my new sea foam green attire to hear blood curdling screams coming from Bella's open door. I knew those screams.

"Bella!" I yelled, running down the hall and sliding through the doorway. She was thrashing around on the hospital bed as Emmett and Charlie tried to hold her arms down. A doctor was standing over her with a syringe tapping the plastic. After a short squirt in the air, I watched with horror as he brought it down to her IV and inserted the drug.

"Let me through," I pushed them aside, crawling onto the bed with her and pulling her to my chest. "Wake up, baby," I panted. "Wake up."

Her eyes were glassed over, her blood already welcoming the drug to calm her down.

"Jake," she whispered. "Jake and James. Together."

_Oh, my God. _"No," I breathed.

Her head nodded in my hands. "In my dream." I watched as she faded back into sleep and fell limp in my arms. Emmett and Rosalie stared at me in shock. Charlie's eyes were confused as he tried to process what she had said. The doctor was looking at me sternly for being in the bed. And, Marcus was staring blankly at Bella. _Marcus? When had he gotten here?_

"James?" Charlie asked, his eyebrows raising. "Who is James?"

"Paparazzi," I answered. "Very angry paparazzi."

"Why is he angry?" he asked quickly.

"I don't know," I said blankly, staring down at Bella. My brain and my heart were screaming obscenities at me for not telling him. This was my chance to keep her safe and protected from them if they truly were working together. If Charlie knew about them, he could have the police out looking for Jake _and_ James.

And, that was when I knew that I had to tell someone. I had to go to the police. My life was less important than hers, and I couldn't let her be fearful of these two men anymore. Before I went back to Los Angeles, I would turn James in so that he would be arrested, and hopefully Jake had been caught by then. If not, she would come with me until he was.

I didn't care about the pictures being released. James could release them. My acting career was over anyways, and I would explain to my family what I had done before any of it came out so they would be prepared.

Bella and I would be able to live carefree for years, and when it was my time to go, the day James was released, I would go willingly knowing that I had given her the very best part of me in our years together.

The very best. Only for her.

* * *

Two days passed slowly as I watched Bella go from having no color in her face whatsoever back to her cream and roses. Her eyes were alight again with flickers of different shades of brown, and her voice had returned to its soft melody leaving her raspy whisper behind. She was back.

A nurse wheeled her outside the sliding doors on a pretty Tuesday morning to the awaiting car, much to Bella's insistence that it was "utter stupidity!" If I could tip the nurse, I would have for putting up with her grumblings. She had become slightly irritable in her brief stay at the hospital because so many people were fawning over her.

Alice, Jasper and Brandon had come to visit by bringing her flowers and balloons and a homemade gift from the little guy. It was a blue-painted popsicle stick with a Diego sticker on the top, a cotton ball on the bottom and a round magnet on the back, but Bella treated it like it was gold. He'd made it in preschool and thought it would make her feel better. Since they'd all been sick, they didn't stay long. The same went for Angela and Ben, who brought over a gigantic 10-balloon bouquet and more flowers.

"Now, Bella," Angela started. "You have to get better because I want you to teach me how to play piano. I hear you have one." Her eyes were sad as she looked over at me. She was upset that people knew about the room now. If it hadn't been for Jake, it would have stayed our secret. But, he had to ruin that, too.

When Emmett came by to check on Bella and Rosalie, who had been with her almost non-stop just like me, I pulled him out into the hallway.

"Emmett, I can't leave her this week," I said desperately. "I can't film when I know she's alone with Jake out there. Or James."

"No worries, brother," he smiled, clapping his large hand down on my shoulder. "We'll CGI your ass into the scenes if we need to. I wouldn't dream of making you go back to work when this is going on. If worse comes to worse, bring her to set. We'll have security heightened at the gates."

"Thank you," I breathed, allowing my body to relax.

"The contractors called about the house. That's why I came over. The door and frame are fixed, and they tested the security of the door. It wouldn't come down even after I gave it a go. Anybody that tries that will walk away with a sore shoulder. I had them replace the back door, too."

"That's good. What about the bedroom?"

"Alice and Jasper fixed it all up back to normal and replaced everything that was broken with exact copies. It will be like it never happened."

I sputtered a little at that. "Right. Like it never happened."

"You know what I mean," he said. "We're trying our best to make this as comfortable a return to the house as possible."

I dropped my head back on my shoulders. "I'm sorry. That was rude. I know you're all doing what you can. It's just going to be really hard taking her back and seeing how she reacts. I'll have a rough night ahead of me. She's worth it, though."

"Yes, she is. Don't ever forget that. I like this version of you."

His words made me smile. "Well, brother, I like this grown-up version of you."

"Touche," he laughed, giving me a fist bump.

Bella and I were in the back of the car headed to the house now, with Marcus driving up front. Her father had been in and out of the hospital checking on her, but knowing that I was there, he had spent most of his time out searching for Jake whether in the office calling for leads or out patrolling the streets.

When we pulled up to the house, I helped her stand outside the car. It had been days since they'd allowed her to walk for very long, so I'd have to be there to help her into the house. Emmett and Rosalie had offered to let us sleep in a guestroom at their house, but Bella adamantly denied their offer saying that she'd have to get over what had happened eventually. She wanted to face her fears head-on and try to heal. I applauded her strength and supported her the best I could, but I also feared that she was taking this to an extreme.

My mother even thought it was too early.

Mom and dad both offered to fly out again to help, but I told them no. Too many people would stress her out. She needed only one person, and that was me, and I wasn't going anywhere.

I opened the new door and she glanced at it with a smirk before strolling inside to the foyer. "I'm guessing this thing is equivalent to 4000 pounds of body armor and has missile proof glass?" she said.

I laughed at her knack to exaggerate, but it was a wary laugh because she was almost completely right this time. "Actually about 1000 pounds of body armor, and yes, the glass is missile proof." Her mouth gaped open. "There's one on the back, too."

"Whatever happened to good old fashioned bullet proof?" she asked. I grimaced, having my dream flash behind my eyes where James held the gun to my head as I knelt over her body. Her face fell slightly, but she shook it off. "None of that," she muttered to herself. "Is the bedroom still destroyed?"

"No, Alice and Jasper put everything back and bought all new stuff. It's perfect again."

"Okay," she said. "Will you help me upstairs?"

"Are you sure you're ready? It's only noon. We can spend the majority of the day down here relaxing and we could sleep in a guestroom tonight."

"Nope, I'm ready," she answered a little more determinedly.

The bedroom door was shut, so I turned the knob and pushed it open. Emmett was right. If you didn't know any better, the room appeared as if nothing had happened. I would even venture to guess that all of her clothes were folded neatly into the replaced armoire that had been broken. My hands tightened around her, expecting her to fold under pressure, but she did no such thing. She actually started to walk into the room as she took even breaths.

"I'm okay," she said. She sat down on my side of the bed and placed her hand on my new pillow. "Where's the note?"

"You read it?"

"Of course I did. When I woke up the first time, I read it and placed it back on your pillow so that when I woke up again it would still be there."

I sighed. "They probably took it as evidence."

"Why?"

"Well..." I paused, rubbing my hand on the back of my neck. There was absolutely no way I could tell her what had happened to it. "Jake ripped it up into little pieces."

"Oh," she replied simply, running her hand along the soft new bed linens. "Thank you for it anyways. That was really sweet and made me smile despite feeling awful."

Bending over, I placed my hands on the bed on either side of her lap and pushed back with my mouth on hers so that she was laying on the bed. This was not a seduction. It was just me showing her how much I loved her.

"I'll write you a thousand more to make up for what was lost," I murmured.

We kissed slowly for hours until I pulled her from bed and ran a hot bath for us to sink into.

By the time the water had cooled to an undesirable temperature and she was pruny beyond what I thought was possible for a human being, we got out and went downstairs in our pajamas to make dinner. She was so beautiful when her hair was damp and hanging loosely. I didn't know what I loved more. A blissed out and relaxed Bella that didn't care about the condition of her hair or the Bella that primped herself into a still natural looking beauty. That was a tough decision.

We chose an easy dinner because neither of us wanted to slave away in the kitchen for the next hour. We sat down on the couch with our grilled cheese and tomato soup and turned on the television to watch a Friends marathon just as it started raining outside. After the third episode, we realized that they were going in order of when they first aired, and the show was coming to an end. Bella cried during the final episode "The Last One, Part 1 and Part 2."

I held her tight during the first half as Rachel left Ross' room after apparently making love one last time before she left to go to Paris for her new job and after Erica gave birth to Monica and Chandler's twins. Ross' pain when Rachel said their love-making was "the perfect way to say goodbye" was felt in my own heart because I would be making love to Bella one last time before I went back to LA for my brief stint to finish the film. She had no idea that I would be back so soon and back to stay, though.

In the second half, Bella was very vocal in yelling at the characters through the screen, making me have to remind her that it was all fake. "I don't care," she swatted my chest. "Why did you choose acting if you're just going to downplay everything as fake? You did it so that people believed what they were seeing."

There were no words that I could respond with because it _was_ all fake. Every last bit of it. Los Angeles and the business. The women that threw themselves at you and the attention. What was real was in my arms.

When Ross told Rachel that he loved her at the airport and she still left, Bella wiped a tear and muttered, "Stupid woman."

"How many times have you seen this?" I asked.

"Probably a hundred."

"Then you know what happens."

"It still doesn't ease the hurt that they feel in that moment."

As Rachel spoke to Ross through the answering machine at his apartment and tried to get off the plane once she realized she was making a mistake, Bella got on the floor in front of the screen in apparent distress.

"_I mean, I didn't even get to tell you that I love you, too. Because of course I do. I love you. I love you. I _love_ you. What am I doing? _I love you._ I've got to see you. I've got to get off this plane."_

She was sitting back on her heels wringing her hair in her hands as the message cut off and Ross screamed _"Oh, my God! Did she get off the plane?! Did she get off the plane?!"_

Bella then collapsed to the floor in relief as everyone heard Rachel sigh, _"I got off the plane,"_ and the camera panned right to show her standing in the doorway. All was well in the world again. The series ended with the whole gang plus the twins helping Monica and Chandler move out of the apartment to live in the quieter suburbs. It was very bittersweet.

As the night went on and we watched more random television shows, I could tell that Bella was making herself stay awake even though she could barely hold her head up. The driving rain outside was lulling her into sleep, but she was fighting it.

"You can go to sleep, Bella," I whispered in her ear. "I'm here, okay? I'll take care of you."

She nodded and fell asleep within minutes on my lap.

I had a morbid curiosity, I guess you could call it, to watch the tapes of the morning when Jake broke in. Maybe you could call me a masochist. But, for some reason, I wanted to see him do what he had done to fuel my anger for the man even more. I carried Bella upstairs and placed her on the couch in the surveillance room carefully to make sure she didn't wake. I sat down in the chair opposite of her, and waited ten minutes to make sure she wouldn't wake back up because I didn't want her to watch this. But, I didn't want to take her to bed and be apart from her if she had a nightmare like she was expecting.

When she didn't stir, I turned around and found the saved file from that day and searched through it until I found the approximate time that Garrett had said he entered the house. Just as expected, his car drove by the camera in the driveway. But, I was surprised how slowly he drove in, and by the fact that he winked at the camera in the tree. Or at least it looked like he did. The security firm was under strict orders not to mention there was a camera, but maybe it had slipped when they had him stopped waiting for my orders to remove him from the property during the reception.

At 9:32:31, Jake ran up to the door and broke it down with his shoulder without any problem and headed for the kitchen, probably to get the knife. There was no audio to go with the recording, so I could not hear the alarm sounding. My stomach churned when I thought how at that very second, Bella was scrambling off the bed and trying to get into her hidden library. I felt so guilty knowing that if I had been there, none of this mess would have happened. Jake's face was livid and mirrored a man that felt he had been wronged. He was out for revenge. That face was a face I knew all too well.

"Edward?" I heard whispered quietly behind me. With one press of a button on the keyboard, the screens went back to live footage, and I doubted she saw any of it. She sat up as I turned around, and her eyes began to open.

"I'm here," I whispered back. "Do you want to go to bed?"

She didn't say anything as she stared at the television monitors behind my head. Had something gone wrong, and I hadn't turned all back to live? I spun around quickly, ready to press the button again when I saw what she was looking at.

Bella let out a scream that rivaled the one in the hospital and jumped off the couch looking out the glass windows to her backyard. "James," she whimpered. I flew out of my chair and knocked her back into the room.

"Lock that door!" I yelled back to her while I ran down the stairs.

"Edward!" she screamed. "No! Don't leave me!"

I was going to rip his fucking head off. There was only one mission, and that was to kill. I'd never felt this amount of fury because James had found her house. He knew where she lived. It was official. I was always afraid that he would follow her home one day and see it. Forks was a small town after all. Who knew how long he'd known.

After haphazardly throwing on my tennis shoes by the front door, my fingers unlocked the deadbolts as quickly as possible, and my ears ignored the blaring sound of the alarm going off. That's when I saw him come around the side and start running down the driveway. I flew off the front porch over the couple of stairs and booked it across her yard and onto the gravel. The rain was freezing cold, but my hot skin quickly warmed it as it fell on me.

The air rushed in and out of my lungs as my muscles pumped for more speed. "Faster," I growled.

"You're never going to catch me!" he laughed dementedly. He swerved back and forth along the driveway about 50 feet in front of me, and I pushed myself harder. I had to catch him. The burn throughout my entire body was something I would endure forever if I had to to keep Bella safe. It felt like flames were licking my insides up and down, but it didn't matter.

"Faster," I growled again, pushing myself past all limits.

"Start the car!" James yelled, and my heart skipped a beat. Someone else was with him.

All of a sudden two headlights flashed on around the curve through the pouring rain, and I knew that I wasn't going to get to him in time. I had gained considerable distance on him, but it was not going to be enough. I snarled in frustration, but I kept going.

As I rounded the corner, all of my motion came to an abrupt stop, and my eyes widened in terror as I took in what was in front of me. James was jumping into the passenger seat of a car, and another man stood off to the side with his finger pointed at me.

"No!" I yelled as the rain poured over me.

"You might want to go back and comfort Bella right about now, Edward," Jake laughed. "She's going to need it." He threw himself into the driver's seat and jerked it in reverse.

I stood there in the rain and stared at the black hole where the car used to be. Where Jake and James used to be. _Holy fuck._ They were working together. Bella was right. This was so much worse than I had ever imagined it could be. They could be in two places at once, knowing where Bella and I were at all times during the day.

"_You might want to go back and comfort Bella right about now, Edward. She's going to need it,"_ Jake had said.

Not knowing where I found the strength, I took off back to the house with the same amount of force I had left it and found the front door wide open and the alarm off with small wet footprints walking along the wood floor. I followed the wet drips upstairs into the bedroom and over to the corner. She was in her library.

"Good girl," I whispered, opening the door. She had protected herself from harm again. As I walked in, I noticed the light wasn't on, so I flipped the switch to find her sitting in the same corner of the room I had found her before.

She was upright this time, soaking wet, with her legs straight out in front of her and a stack of papers to her side in her hand.

"I'm okay, baby," I told her. She didn't look up to me. Her eyes stayed trained on the piano in front of her. "It was James and Jake."

"I know," she said calmly. Crawling down on the floor next to her, I took the stack of papers from her hand and turned them upside down so I could see what they were. All the air escaped my lungs when I saw a picture of Bella standing completely naked in front of her bedroom window with my fingers inside of her. The next was of my back pressed against the glass as she had her mouth on me. Several shots were of her hands on the window as I entered her from behind. But, most of them were of her back pressed against the glass and our hands entangled above her head.

"Jesus Christ," I muttered. "This was the night of the reception. Three weeks after I came back."

She nodded her head.

"Where were these?" I asked.

"Doormat."

The last piece of paper was a hand written note, and I felt myself die inside as I read the words.

_My Darling B,_

_You crossed a line by having me arrested._

_You deserve every pain that comes to you_

_and every heartache for my suffering. I'll_

_be waiting for you to cross one more line_

_because you will, Bella. You are weak.__ When_

_the time is right, your life will be over. You_

_may wish to meet your mother in heaven_

_when it happens, but you will rot in hell_

_with the rest of us, and once I join you,_

_I will terrorize you in death._

_Forever yours to fear,_

_J_

Another note in different handwriting ran along the bottom of the paper.

_I know her father knows about me. The world will know about you and Tanya tomorrow. Bella's photos and her life are in your hands. You have been warned a final time._

Tears began to fall from my eyes as I pulled her motionless body to mine. "I'm so sorry I did this, Bella. This is all my fault."

"They'll never stop," she whispered.

The photos of Tanya and I were probably already released to magazines. It was only a matter of time before Jane called me. I probably only had until the morning hours before my mother called, and once she did, I would hear the disappointment in her and my father's voices.

The pictures would be spun as happening at the present. Horrible stories about my relationship with Bella would be splashed across the headlines. The "scandals" before with Victoria, Aro and Emmett would pale in comparison to what would be printed now. But, none of that mattered anymore. None of it.

How could I go to the police when James and Jake were working together? That would be a clear crossing of this boundary line Jake had formed, and there would be no stopping them from killing her. When it was only my life and career being threatened, I was willing to give them both up to save her. But, James didn't kill me when he had the chance, and that made it blatantly obvious that I was no longer his target. The tables had been turned.

James and Jake knew the best way to get to me, and that was through Bella. She was the target, and they knew I would doing anything to protect her.

I couldn't go to the police.

But, I had to get her out of here for now.

Finding my newest phone in my pajama pocket that I had Emmett get me while I was with Bella in the hospital, I dialed a number.

"Hello?" the man answered.

"Marcus, I need you to come out to Bella's house. You are driving us to Seattle. Tonight."

* * *

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

Holy hell. It's now official. James and Jake are working together.

At least Jake didn't find her in the house. She was in pretty rough shape, though. Poor thing. Charlie and Edward finally met but under such bad terms. I want you all to realize that Charlie is a good man and father. Bella is mostly at fault for keeping her pain from him secret. You know that he would be there for her if she showed any kind of suffering.

What a way to find out James and Jake were working together, huh? It's gotten really serious now. What do you think is going on in Bella's head? She's awfully quiet and calm. We know what's going on in Edward's. How is he going to be able to leave her to fend for herself in a little over two weeks? Maybe it won't matter...

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
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**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	20. Chapter 20 1,209,600 seconds

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

**So, this story has been being pimped on The Nest message boards. *waves* Hi, TwiNest Ladies that have found their way here! Ummm...that's pretty fuckawesome if I do say so myself. You shocked the hell out of me with your kindness, and I hope you liked your little treat I sent your way via budtrixjake.**

Rated M: **angst, language,** violence, **lemons**

* * *

**Two new songs added this chapter****! Check them out: ****http:/www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139 and here:** **http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=rs2c9QV9o-U**

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**Chapter 20**

**1,209,600 Seconds**

I sat in the chair in the corner of the master bedroom in our hotel suite wrapped warmly in a blanket despite my prominent nudity underneath. For the past hour I had stared at his sleeping form, naked and alone in bed, at peace for a change. This room at the Hotel 1000 had become our safe haven the past few days. I was happy the accommodations of the Grand Suite were large, boasting 2,000 square feet of living space and wraparound views of Seattle, for if not for the various rooms to wander and the open airiness of the windows, I would have suffocated.

Edward refused to let us leave the hotel for fear that if we stepped through that front revolving door, we would be attacked by photographers. The only time we left the room was to go down to a dark corner of the lobby while housekeeping cleaned. Even then we wore hats and our most non-attention-grabbing clothes.

Despite our temporary imprisonment, our connection to the outside world had not been completely cut off. We still had television, a laptop and our cell phones. When the photos of him and Tanya hit the wire, Edward was labeled a cheater, a monster and a sex addict. One of the magazine covers had an unhappy photo of him on the left side coming off the set that was taken only days after filming began, and on the right was one of the photos of me after James had tripped me. Supposedly I was so distraught, I collapsed to the ground outside my store and cried. These photos were nicely accented by a "rip" down the middle of the cover to indicate how we were torn apart by his infidelity.

Edward said that all that mattered was that I knew the truth, but obviously he was bothered. He was a good man, and having the collective world see him as such deplorable things was something he would never forgive himself for.

He did all he could to keep my eyes from seeing the photos, and I didn't fight against his struggle because I didn't want to see them myself. But an ill-timed channel change past an entertainment news show threw them in my face. One after the other censored image flashed across the screen as I sat there with my mouth agape, finger paralyzed on the remote button.

I tried not to cry. I really did. Tears are inevitable, though, when seeing the man that you sleep next to every night in the throes of passion with another woman. Especially the most beautiful woman in the world.

The expression on his face was the last thing I saw before he ran in the room and slammed his finger on the button to turn the television off.

Hanging his head, he turned to me with a sorrowful look. "Bella, I'm-"

"Don't apologize again," I interrupted. "It was before me. Before me." I whispered the last part as an assurance to myself more than him. I closed my eyes in an attempt to calm down and stop the remaining tears, but his face on the screen was burned into my mind – his mouth open, eyes boring into hers, lust present in every feature.

"I love you," he whispered sadly from near the television, not making any move to come closer. And, with those words, the image faded from behind my eyelids, and I opened them to see something stronger than what he showed Tanya.

Unconditional love.

"I love you, too," I sighed, standing from the couch and meeting him halfway for what was one of many moments where we just held onto each other for an immeasurable amount of time, breathing in and out, forgetting what we'd seen or read. Toes stretched up and arms secured around, I held onto him with all of my might. He was my support and my protector. My Edward.

The air leaving his parted lips breezed across the pillow delicately as I watched him now from my perch in the cushy chair. Another teardrop landed on my arm, and I raised my hand to wipe away the remnants. If I made it to where the tears would have to blaze new trails each time they dropped from my eyes, maybe they would stop. But, I wasn't dumb enough to believe they would.

_Two weeks._

Two more weeks, and he would be gone. Two more weeks, and he would leave me in Forks while he went back to Los Angeles. Two more weeks before Edward and I were over...

Another tear dropped.

Jake and James were now one unit of anger and revenge. We didn't know how long this had been going on, but it was horrifying no matter the length of time they'd been working together. Sometime during the night of the reception, James had slipped past the security Edward had hired and positioned himself behind my house. It was the prime spot to take the photos of Edward and I having sex against my bedroom window. Or rather, me having sex with _someone _that you couldn't make out in the darkness.

James barely took any nude photos of Edward. Seventeen of the eighteen shots were of me, in fact. And Jake, when he tore through my bedroom hellbent on retribution, yelled only _my_ name. He didn't yell for Edward when the lamps crashed against the wall. He didn't yell for Edward when he threw the drawers from my armoire onto the floor, shattering the wood.

My name was the only name that passed his lips as he demolished my things, one errant throw away from hearing the hollow of the hidden door...one errant throw away from finding me huddled in the corner, quietly sobbing, "Edward, I need you," over and over.

James had released Edward's photos with Tanya with no mention of the previous death threats against him. They served as a warning and an acknowledgment at the same time. They warned us that he was not bluffing when he said that my photos would be released, and they also acknowledged that he had his eyes set on a new target.

James and Jake were now one unit of anger and revenge, yes, and that anger and revenge was directed at me and only me.

_Two weeks._

Two more weeks, and he would be gone. Two more weeks, and he would leave me in Forks while he went back to Los Angeles. Two more weeks before Edward and I were over... because in two more weeks, I would be dead.

When Edward had found me in the library, after I found the photos and death threat and before he whisked me off to this hotel for protection, I had already started to come to grips with my fate. There was no doubt in my mind that our time together was coming to an end. But, Edward would never know that I was thinking like this or that I was working on a plan that would keep him safe.

I mean, I'd had more than my fair share of near-death experiences; it wasn't something you ever really got used to.

It seemed oddly inevitable, though, facing death again. Like I really was marked for disaster. I'd escaped time and time again, but it kept coming back for me. Still, this time was so different from the others. This time I was in control.

How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt your beloved one? If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?

When my time came to leave this world, I would go willingly because I would know Edward could go on. He could live. And, he would.

Now was the time to put my shield back up and block out the pain like I'd always done. The wall had come crashing down weeks ago when he learned about the accident, but since we'd been in Seattle, I'd been rebuilding it as quickly as possible.

Edward stirred and reached his hand out for me on the bed. When his palm touched cold sheet, he shot up using his arms to raise his upper body from his stomach-down position so that he could look around the room frantically. It was like he'd been struck by lightning.

"I'm here," I soothed, crawling into bed, gently touching his cheek with my hand.

"Bella," he breathed, rolling so that I was tucked into his side. He was exhausted because we had been up until the early morning hours making love. It was the only time that I felt like our lives were as they should be, and the only thing that mattered was us. Every moment connected to him like that was one moment that I would take with me when I was gone. And, if I could give him one thing to remember me by, I hoped that he would know how much I loved him by looking back to those hours of our breaths mingling and our minds, bodies and souls becoming one.

His cell phone rang all of a sudden, startling us from our peace, and I reached behind me for it. It was Jane. Handing it to him, I rolled out of bed and padded my way across the plush carpet into the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror, listening to his muffled conversation through the door, I closed my eyes and dipped my head, remembering the night we left Forks.

I straddled his lap in the backseat while he called Jane, ready to do whatever I needed to bring him comfort if needed. The phone call was tense because Edward had never planned on telling her about the photos in this way, if he had planned on telling her at all. She tried her hardest to not be mad, but she still lost her temper over the fact that he'd known about this for so long and gave her barely any time to prepare.

He didn't explain why the photos were taken or by who, and he didn't tell her that there were death threats or that there were more of him and me together. He only told her the most basic information she needed to know because he knew that telling her any more would mean my life would be on the line.

Many things would be considered crossing that line, and Edward was adamant against doing any of them. Of course he refused to go to the police, and this included my father. James had somehow found out that Edward had said something to Charlie, and that resulted in this mess in the tabloids. He briefly considered a bodyguard for me but ruled that out once he realized that he'd have to tell the bodyguard who he would be guarding me from. That would be the same thing that he did with my father.

When he had finished explaining what was going to happen and allowed Jane to form a plan of defense, I laid down in the backseat with my head on his lap while he called his parents in the early morning hours, even earlier for them in Chicago.

"Mom," he'd said sorrowfully. "I've got something that I need to tell you, and I need you to be sitting down, okay?" There was a pause. "This isn't happy news. I'm sorry. I wish that was why I was calling...You see, I did something pretty bad about eight months ago, and I know it was a mistake and I'm sorry I'm just now telling you...but something's happened regarding what I did, and you need to know now because I don't want you to find out any other way...I slept with Tanya Paul, and there were nude photos taken by someone. They are being released to the press today."

Once again, he could only give her the basics. My heart broke for him as Esme cried into his ear. Edward held his emotions at bay as he explained what they would see in the photos, and it wasn't until his father got on the line that Edward lost it and started to cry himself.

I sat up and crawled onto his lap again while I listened to what Carlisle was saying.

"_Edward, you made a mistake in letting this happen. You know you made a mistake. But, do you think we love you any less?"_

"I don't know," he responded quietly as a tear streamed down his face.

"_Son, we love you no matter what. We're not going anywhere. This is a non-issue in our minds."_

Edward nearly crumpled at his words. He needed them to know the whole truth right then because he was at his last rope. We both now knew the feeling of needing a parent but being unable to go to them, and it killed me that he was suffering. I had to do what I could to take his anxiety away. I was so good at this and had so many years of experience under my belt. He couldn't go through life with this guilt, especially when I was gone.

That was when I decided to accept what was going to happen and do my best to tie up all loose ends through any means possible. Edward. My father. My friends. I had to find a way to express to them how much I loved them before it was too late.

When I exited the bathroom, he was sitting on the side of the bed with the sheet wrapped around his waist, running his fingers through his hair. Knowing that he needed to be soothed again, I crawled across the king mattress and scratched his back and placed featherlight kisses along his shoulder blades. Tiny goosebumps formed, so I changed what I was doing and rubbed my hand across them to both warm his skin so they would go away and massage the muscles in his back. He was always so tense.

"Jane, you know we can't leave this room," he said. "Who knows if the staff has alerted the media that we're staying here. The manager knows not to, but what about housekeeping? What about room service? Then there's spa services. They've been in and out of here enough over the past three days to know who we are. It doesn't take a genius to recognize us. Our faces are plastered everywhere."

The room was quiet enough that I could hear Jane speaking. "So, you're going to stay locked up there forever? What about the movie? You're going to drop out when you're over halfway done filming it? What does Emmett have to say about this?"

Edward groaned. "He says that I have to come back. He's been supportive up until now, but I have to come back and bust my ass these next two weeks to get through the scenes I've missed. I pretty much have one take to get it right."

Emmett knew everything. He was the only one that did besides us. But it didn't change the fact that Edward was under contract to finish this movie. He needed to go back to Forks and get to work.

I was given only one option on how to spend my days once we were home: on set and no more than 10 feet away from Edward or Emmett. I couldn't open the bookstore. I couldn't see my friends unless they came to me. I probably couldn't even take a bathroom break without one of them outside the door.

That was going to be a problem.

"When are you leaving Seattle, then?" she asked.

"Tomorrow morning," he answered.

"Marcus bringing you back?" she asked.

"Yes. He's been staying at the hotel, down a few floors from us."

"Meet you in Forks tomorrow around noon?"

"That's when Emmett expects me on set, so that's fine," he said.

They spoke for a minute longer, and then they hung up. Turning around on the mattress swiftly, he tackled me to the bed, pinning me underneath him.

"What do you want to do today, my lady?" he asked. "Sleep? Order a dozen movies? Make out? Make sweet, sweet love under these very sheets?" Each option kept getting sillier. At least my cool demeanor seemed to be rubbing off on him. "Make sweet, sweet love in the tub? Or maybe on the dining room table? We haven't christened that room, yet. You know we know how to christen a table-"

I pressed my fingers to his lips to silence him as I giggled. Quickly, I stretched my head up and kissed his lips chastely as soon as I released my fingers. None of his options were what I had in mind, and I knew it would be a struggle to get him to agree to my idea. But, it was something we both needed before we went back to Forks...before we went to back to our _new_ prison.

His eyebrow quirked. "Make out it is, mademoiselle."

Before I could protest, he filled my mouth with his tongue, and I rolled my eyes.

"E-wer," I groaned into his mouth, trying to say his name while placing my flattened palms onto his shoulders and pushing. He rolled, pulling me on top of him while he expertly kept his mouth glued to mine, not faltering for even a millisecond. Resigned that he was happy this way, I caved and melted into this make out session. There were worse things that I could give in to, after all.

Thirty minutes later, lips pleasantly swollen and red, he dropped his head to the bed with a mischievous grin. "Did I make you forget about what you were wanting to propose?"

"Nope," I smiled.

"Didn't think I did. At least that was fun. What do you want to do?"

"Go to dinner."

"We'll order in," he said, reaching for the leather notebook on the bedside table with the room service menu. The way his muscles rippled with the motion made me quiver. "I'm sure if we call early enough, they will make whatever we feel like. Let me call them." He started to sit up so that he could reach the phone, and I crawled on top of him trying to weight him down.

"Uh-uh," I said. "Go _out_ to dinner."

His mouth dropped open. "Absolutely not, Bella. Not with them out there."

"Please?" I begged. "Pretty, pretty please? Seattle is huge. We don't know for sure that anybody even knows we're here. Please?"

"No," he said again with force. The look in his eyes told me that he wouldn't budge. There was an anger in them – an anger at me for even suggesting it. I blanched.

"Please?" I whispered, tears prickling in my eyes that he could get mad at me. I'd been amazingly non-whiny this entire time.

Seeming to understand that he was coming off a little too harsh, he sighed and kissed my forehead. "No, baby. Don't make me keep saying that word. I don't like telling you that. I want to give you everything, but I cannot give you this."

"Please?" I tried one more time. My voice was so miniscule, I didn't know if he'd heard me. With a small shake of his head from left to right, I knew he had, though. Closing my eyes, unwilling to show him my pain any longer, I rolled from his arms and got out of bed. I was able to get to the bathroom, lock the door and step into a warm shower before I let the tears fall in torrents. They washed away with the water, but the strained sobbing noises that managed to find their way out of my chest could not be drowned out by the water on the floor.

The rattling of the locked door knob broke me out of my solitude.

"Bella?" I heard him say sadly through the door. "Please don't cry."

Defeated, I slid to the floor, my wet hair sticking to the cold wall. I did not speak.

"Will you let me in?" he asked. I couldn't do it. This was one of those times that I needed to collapse with the weight of the situation. He could think that I was crying because I was upset that he wouldn't allow us to go out to eat, but that was only a mere part of it – the catalyst.

There was a rustling noise on the door before he spoke again.

"I love you. Do you know that?" he continued softly. "Do you know that when I wake up in the morning, before getting up to get ready to go to the set and before you wake up, I tell you a new thing you did the previous day that made me fall in love with you even more?"

I stopped breathing and stared at the door.

"Usually I can't think of only just one, so I tell you all of them. Sometimes it crosses my mind that I should stock up, you know? Keep them in a bank for a day that I might need one? Like a rollover, I guess. But, there's never been a time that I've needed to pull one from a previous day. I've never needed to lie or even reuse. Today, for instance, if I'd have woken up before you, I'd have told you that the way you hug me makes me completely forget why we're here and what's happening out there."

Another tear fell from my eyes as I pulled my knees up and hugged my own legs to my chest. Resting my forehead on them, I closed my eyes and listened as he went on.

"A hug, baby. That's all I need. Something as simple as that coming from you makes me forget my fears. And, after that, I would have told you that the way you look at me when we make love incapacitates me. It was always a deep connection from the very beginning, but something's changed, Bella. I can't tell if it's the intensity of the situation or just confirming what my mother told me at the wedding reception about love, but I don't ever want to let it go."

I wanted to ask what his mother asked, but he answered without me having to do it.

"She said that she's loved my father more each day, and despite the power of our love today, no matter how great, it will only be a blip compared to what it will be years down the road."

I brought my head up again. _Years down the road?_ Another tear fell. We didn't have years down the road. We had weeks at most. _Two weeks._

"I can't imagine the amazing ache in my chest that I will hold for you at that time. It already takes my breath away. You don't understand how much I love you, Bella, and what I'd do for you."

_Yes, I do. And, that's why I'm going to do what I have to do. For you, Edward. One day I hope you'll forgive me._

"And, tomorrow, if you were to have woken up before me again, I'd have told you that being alone with you for these four days, despite the reasons why, were the best four days of my entire life."

"Mine, too," I whispered knowing that he couldn't hear me through the water.

"Waking up next to you whenever I wanted and seeing you standing next to me in the bathroom mirror while we brushed our teeth...that's what I've needed, Bella."

I snorted quietly at the absurdity but truthfulness.

"Breakfast in bed. Watching movies. Doing crosswords. Making love. Making out. Hugging. I want that every day with you. I need it. It's all I've ever needed."

I sniffled. I wanted and needed that every day, too. But, those days were numbered.

I couldn't allow myself to stay locked in this bathroom, breaking down, when I only had so long to be near him. Standing, I grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around my torso.

"Bella, you're all I've ever needed," he continued shakily as I walked to the door. Turning the knob quickly while simultaneously unlocking the door, I pulled it open, only to have him fall back unexpectedly and bang his head on the tile floor. He'd been sitting on the floor, propped against the door.

He looked up at me as I looked down at him, sympathy radiating from both sets of our eyes.

"I love you," I mouthed through my muted voice.

"I love you, too, Bella," he repeated to me.

"I'm sorry I walked away," I said.

"I'm sorry I had to tell you no," he replied. After getting up off the floor he shut the door, took my hand and led me to the shower where we made love once again, needing that connection to forget about the pain. And, of course, I hugged myself to him with all of the strength I had knowing that there was only so long for him to feel this comfort. _Two weeks._

Several hours later I found myself comfortably tucked into bed. The last thing I remembered was watching a movie on the couch. I must have fallen asleep. Stretching, I sat up and noticed the time on the clock on the nightstand said it was a quarter after six in the evening.

Rubbing my eyes, they focused on the item that was laid out at the end of the bed. A metallic gold dress.

"Edward?" I said loudly, not sure where he was in the suite.

"Yep?" I heard from the living room area. The crinkling of paper told me that he was most likely reading a newspaper.

"What is this?"

"A dress."

I rolled my eyes. _I know that._

"You can stop rolling your eyes, Bella."

A small laugh escaped me before I threw my hand over my mouth to stop it.

"Any other questions?" he asked.

"Well, yeah. What's it for? It's awfully fancy."

"You should see the jewelry."

"Are you going to answer my question?" I huffed.

"It's for you to wear at dinner."

"Don't we usually sit around in our sweats to eat dinner?"

"Since it's our last night, why don't we get dressed up?"

"Okay..." I said warily. This seemed odd. Placing my feet on the floor, I walked around and picked up the gorgeous metallic shoes. "Where did all of this come from? It's not mine."

"I called Alice. I had her speak with someone at a boutique here in Seattle. They delivered the dress and shoes in your size about 30 minutes ago following her strict instructions."

"Oh," I said. The dress was gorgeous. It wasn't Alice's design, obviously, but I still loved it. The bodice was another corseted top with almost a wrap look to it. The whole dress was the same subtle metallic fabric, but there were art deco beaded accents where the two pockets were on the sides. It was lovely. The metallic peep-toe shoes were to-die-for, as well. Alice knew me well.

Skipping out to the living room, shoes in hand, I kissed Edward on the couch. "Thank you, baby. I love them. I'll go get ready right now."

With a swat on my behind, I took off toward the master bathroom to do my hair and makeup. When I came out, all dolled up, Edward sat on the bed wearing a suit. In his hand was a gift bag. His palm held it up as I walked over to him.

"For you," he said.

Already scared that he said that the jewelry was fancier than the dress, I took it and peeked carefully inside the bag with one eye.

Two boxes. _Dammit._

Spoiling me once again.

Out came the larger box first. He took it from my hands and opened it to reveal an intricate bracelet. "Not diamonds," he said quickly. "I figured you'd throw it back at me if I bought you more diamonds, so these are just crystals."

"You figured right," I smiled, admiring the detail of the piece.

Pulling out the small black velvet box, he held it in his hand for a second. Then he turned it around and opened it up slowly in front of me, my eyes narrowing in on the sparkles emitting from the black encasement.

"Wow," I breathed. "Beautiful."

"Yes," he said. "The top and bottom stones are both crystals, too, and the middle stone is a London Blue Topaz. I thought they'd look pretty in your ears."

He pulled each earring out and placed them in the holes, making sure to brush his fingers along my neck after each one. The goosebumps were out of control. Even after these months together of caressing, his simple touch still surprised my skin.

"You're beautiful," he whispered, his breath fanning across my neck. And, then he was gone.

Turning around, my eyes jumped around the room looking for him before they caught him walking back in with something draped over his arm.

"Here," he said, holding it out for me to put my arms through. It was a gorgeous black wool trapeze coat with a satin belt. It was also trimmed in the same black satin.

"A coat? For the dining room?" I asked incredulously.

His head dipped to my ear from behind me. "We're going out to dinner, Bella."

I gasped and spun around quickly. "Going _out? _As in _outside?_"

A smirk spread across his face, and it quickly turned into the cutest cringe as I reached Alice-level screeching.

"Damn, baby," he laughed, wrapping me up in a hug. "You really _did_ want to go out to dinner."

"Why did you change your mind?" I asked.

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "When I thought about it...one evening out, in a big city, with ample planning wouldn't be so bad. We wouldn't need to go far, and Marcus is going to drive us there anyways. The restaurant has a private room called The Cache that has one table and overlooks the lake. It's very romantic."

"What restaurant?"

"The Canlis Restaurant."

"I've always wanted to go there," I told him. "Thank you so much for all of this."

"For you, anything, Bella. I mean it. I'm sorry I was so defiant this morning. I should have known that you would be anxious to leave this hotel. I've kept you here against your will."

"Not against my will," I protested with a shake of my head. "I haven't wanted to leave until today. I'm just not used to being holed up in a room afraid to leave like you are."

"Now you understand why I was so reluctant to go up to the room when you dropped me off at the hotel the first day?"

"Yes, I do," I smiled while trying to adjust his tie that I'd messed up when I hugged him.

"Okay, then. The hotel is letting us use a service entrance to meet Marcus, but it's through the kitchen of the restaurant, which means we're also going to have to walk through the restaurant. It's dinner time already on a Saturday night, so there will be a lot of people around. Will you promise to keep your head down for me?"

He was so concerned. "I promise," I told him.

"If someone recognizes us, keep walking. I won't let go of your hand for a second, okay? The easiest way through the restaurant is through the middle. We'll pass less tables than if we walked along the perimeter, so just hold my hand, keep your head down and your hair draped around your face until we get to the car."

On the way down in the elevator, I got nervous. Very nervous. All we were doing was walking through people, but now I understood what he went through every day as a celebrity. The people of Forks didn't have this amount of interest in my life because they all knew me beforehand. But, this was a much grander scale in a much larger city. One person to recognize us would be all it would take to cause mass hysteria in two seconds flat.

When the doors dinged and opened, Edward whispered, "Down now," as my instruction to look down to the floor and follow his lead. He walked at a normal pace, a sure fire way to look normal. If we'd sprinted across the lobby, we'd have drawn attention to ourselves. His arm angled slightly behind him so that I fell one step behind, with him in front of me, and a little blocked by his body. If anyone was to recognize us, they'd recognize him first, and if anyone approached us, he'd be able to protect me.

The noise ahead alerted me that we were entering a crowd of bodies. He politely dodged restaurant patrons as they waited to be called for their tables, and a few seconds later, we were bathed in darkness. The noise level was minutely quieter as the vast number of people were spread out wider across the room. Soft golden light lit the room from the candles that were on the tables.

Chair leg after chair leg passed by my new shoes. My heart rate was elevated as it took longer than I thought it would to get through the dining area. All I needed to hear was a small gasp and my heart would immediately stop. This was my idea, and it had to go flawlessly.

Then, with a rush of air, a swinging door was flung open, and we were in a brightly lit white and stainless steel room filled with clanging metal and yelling. The kitchen. The last room before the car. We just had to make it through here.

This wouldn't be weird at all, though, right? Two people in dress clothes walking through the private kitchen of a high-end restaurant? No, not strange in the least.

I groaned a little, realizing that this was probably the place we'd be recognized, and then all of a sudden, we were through another door and the cold Seattle air hit my legs and face, chilling my flushed skin.

The back door of a sleek limo was already opened for me, and I jumped in, uncertain of the level of anonymity we were still trying to keep. Edward was next to me, and the door was closed before I had time to think of anything else.

"Wow," he smiled, with a shrug of his shoulders. "That went better than I thought it would. Hey, you okay?" His hands cupped my face due to the fact that my eyes were wide in shock.

"Fine!" I sputtered. "I really worked myself up! Holy shit! How in the hell do you do that all the time?"

"That back there?" he asked. "That rarely ever happens. I usually get noticed. That was a gosh damn miracle! Not a soul in that place realized it was you and me, and if they did, they didn't make any noise or movement to the fact."

Breathing a sigh of relief, I relaxed into the black leather of the seat and sat back for the ride to the restaurant.

When we pulled up outside of this amazing stone and glass architectural marvel, we were met by the maitre d' who escorted us inside the restaurant and up a set of private stairs to a beautiful room called The Cache that overlooked Lake Union. It had a single table with white linens, two place settings and spotless stemware for our wine. In the corner sat a chaise lounge.

"This is so wonderful," I sighed. Edward walked up behind me and encircled his arms around my waist, dropping his chin on the top of my shoulder.

"There's even a personal stereo system," he said. "I'd love it if you would dance with me later."

_One last dance. _The immediate thought brought tears to my eyes, but they'd easily be masked as delight if I tried hard enough. I forced a smile across my face and turned to him. His answering smile confirmed that he thought I was simply happy.

We sat down at the table and were quickly met by an attentive personal waiter. He explained the menu to us and we both chose to start out with The Canlis Salad. For the main course we chose the Muscovy Duck which served two.

Each dish was served with a different wine pairing. Edward didn't even seem to care about the price. If I wasn't mistaken, the bottle of wine paired with our duck was $3000. My stomach turned. Money was no object to me, either, but this seemed over the top in extravagance.

As soon as the sommelier exited the room, I whispered, "Is this bottle of wine as much as I think it is?"

He took a sip of it and smiled. "How much do you think it is?"

"Three thousand?"

"No," he said, shaking his head and smirking. My shoulders relaxed. "It was nearly four."

"Awww, hell," I grumbled. That elicited a small chuckle from him.

"Enjoy it, Bella. You deserve it." He leaned in and gave me a kiss on the temple. "At least I didn't purchase the $17,500 bottle of burgundy."

The look on my face warned him to not even think about it if he was.

Edward ordered secretly off the dessert menu when we were finished with the main course, whispering low enough that I couldn't hear, and when the cart was brought in, I about cried. _A whole cart...of dessert!_ This was something you only heard of in movies.

Alice's words rang in my ears. _"Well, he is a movie star."_

On the cart was a cheese plate, carrot cake, Hawaiian donuts with vanilla bean cream, chocolate cake smothered in more chocolate, crème brulee and souffle. _Eff me._

"How do you expect us to eat all of that?" I asked.

"We've got the room until they close." He referenced his watch. "That gives us two hours. We can take our time."

With that, he stood and walked over to the stereo, and hooked up his iPod. Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love With You," filled the room.

"Dance with me," he whispered, taking my hand and pulling me out of the chair.

We spun slowly, my hand in his, his body pressed against mine warm and comforting.

_Wise men say only fools rush in  
But I can't help falling in love with you_

"Thank you for telling me that you loved me," he said, his eyes glistening.

_Shall I stay  
Would it be a sin  
If I can't help falling in love with you_

"Thank you for getting me to open my eyes," I replied. It was an innocent love back then, not so long ago, oblivious of where our relationship was headed – oblivious to its own power.

_Like a river flows surely to the sea  
Darling so it goes  
Some things are meant to be  
_

He leaned down and kissed my lips softly as we danced, taking my hand and flattening it against his heart, holding it there with his own. It was racing.

_Take my hand, take my whole life too_

It took all of my strength to stop the tears as those words were sung.

_For I can't help falling in love with you_

Despite how this would end, I would never change what we'd found. I'd do it all over again without hesitation. This – all of it – was meant to happen.

_Like a river flows surely to the sea  
Darling so it goes  
Some things are meant to be  
_

"I can't imagine my life without you," he whispered shakily, his fingers splaying across the small of my back, pulling me closer to him. My heart wept what my eyes could not. He was holding onto me so tightly, but eventually he would have to let go of me...of us.

_Take my hand, take my whole life too  
For I can't help falling in love with you_

"I love you," he mouthed, his lips barely parting. The movement of his lips may have been lost on anyone else, but I would always know what he said. He could mouth it against my skin, my eyes closed, and I would know.

_For I can't help falling in love with you_

The air in the room shifted, and I wasn't too sure it was the wine making it seem thicker; almost palpable. The shift coincided with Edward's gaze. There was a nervousness in his eyes but paired with determination and maybe a hint of joy... or fear? His conflicting eyes stared deep into mine. "Isabella Marie Swan-"

Just then the sommelier came bounding in the room whistling happily, and Edward's head and shoulders slumped forward and the air in his lungs whooshed out against my face. I snapped my head to the right to see the man put his hands up in the air and excuse himself from the room with a small apology.

Edward was grumbling something under his breath, but I couldn't tell what it was.

"Hey," I said, pulling his eyes up to mine. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he sighed. "I'd asked for privacy is all."

"Oh, well, it's fine. No harm done. He caught us at the tail end of the song. Don't get mad. He obviously didn't know. You can't let this ruin the rest of our evening."

Edward took a deep breath and nodded.

"Do you mind if I take a restroom break?" I asked. That would give him a few minutes to calm down and me a chance to breathe.

"I'll come with you," his said quickly.

"Edward, please. You can't follow me in the bathroom."

"No, but I could wait outside the door to make sure you're okay."

"Don't be absurd. Someone would recognize you. I'm less noticeable when I'm apart from you. I'll run down quickly and be right back up. Five minutes tops if there's a line."

"Longer than five minutes, and I can come find you?" he asked.

"Promise. You can even call in the National Guard for the search in the stalls," I joked.

"Don't think I wouldn't do it, Bella. This is your safety we're talking about."

"Nobody knows we're here besides Marcus. I'll be fine." Before he could say anything else, I began walking backwards toward the door and the stairway. "Five minutes," I said again holding up all of my fingers on my left hand.

His eyes flickered to my fingers, and I saw a flash of sadness fly through his eyes before it was gone.

Finding the restroom without needing to pass anybody was a godsend. Nobody was even in there. I was more than a little grateful to be spared anyone seeing my less than graceful march to the stall when I had to stop and make sure the room wasn't tilting to the left and sliding into the lake.

If I'd kept time right in my head including the walk/stumble down here, I was at two and a half minutes when I'd finished. Washing my hands thoroughly with the soap and water, I exited the bathroom with a full two minutes to spare. No National Guard needed for me.

Just as I stepped out, a man flew out of the men's restroom on his cell phone. It was Marcus. His back was to me, so he didn't see me there, but it was very obvious that he was angry with someone.

My feet were rooted in place watching him stalk away. "That's not my fault!" he growled. "_I_ didn't even know until tonight!"

Then he was gone around the corner, his voice fading with him. Something had pissed him off, or someone was pissed at him. Either way, this was the irritated man that I'd met before, not the man that had come back to Forks.

The door to our private room was open about a foot when I made it back upstairs. Edward was sitting on the chaise lounge with his head in his hands. Of course his fingers were tugging at the roots of his hair.

He was muttering quietly under his breath, but it sounded like he was saying, "It was perfect. It was _so_ perfect. Dammit."

_What was perfect? Our evening? Of course it was._

I found that there was a small bite taken out of everything on the dessert cart as I walked by it unbeknownst to him, dragging my finger along the plate the chocolate cake was poised on.

"Hungry?" I asked, startling him. His head snapped up with a jolt, and I saw his throat bob.

"Maybe," he said slowly. "I needed something to do for the first minute. You being down there alone was driving me insane. I was hoping you wouldn't notice."

I laughed. "Not notice _that_?" I pointed to the crater in the crème brulee that was the perfect size of the spoon that sat on the side of the plate; the spoon that still had remnants of dessert on it. Picking up the utensil, I scooped out my own share and put it in my mouth.

"Holy crow," I moaned. _Did my eyes just roll into the back of my head?_ "This almost tastes as good as the best crème brulee I've ever eaten."

"Where is this amazing dish?" he asked, taking another taste with my spoon.

"This corner cafe in Paris called Le Vin Sobre."

Edward's head threw back, and he started laughing. "In the 5th arrondissement?"

I had to think about it. "I believe that's the district. Do you know it?"

"Let's just say that whenever I'm in Paris, I like to make at least one trip to the Jardin du Luxembourg, and then I wind my way through the streets to this cafe on a corner for the best crème brulee I've ever eaten."

He paused for a second and then whispered, "Take me back there when you show me your Paris."

More tears were cried by my heart because I'd never get to show him _my_ Paris – the relaxing and carefree place where there wasn't anything to worry about.

He pulled the cart over to the table and we sat down. It didn't escape my attention that there was a bottle of champagne in a chilled bucket, and it just wasn't any bottle of champagne. It was a 1996 Cristal.

_It's just money. It's just money. Just a lot of friggin' money. Another $850 dropped on our meal._

With a shiny silver fork, he pierced a piece of the chocolate cake I'd been eyeing and put it at my lips. When I opened them, he smoothly inserted the dessert, and I almost cried again.

"So, so good," I whispered, making sure I licked every piece of chocolate off my lips. "Holy hell. I'm so full from dinner, but I don't give a damn."

He chuckled and poured us each a glass of champagne. By our third flute, and after most of the dessert had been devoured, I was feeling more than tipsy. We'd emptied the contents of three bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne over the course of three hours.

"You ready to go?" he asked, nuzzling his nose along my jawline. His scent was more intoxicating than the wine and champagne. What was it that he smelled like the first day I met him? Oh, yes. He smelled like man. Sweat and alcohol and cologne. Maybe not so much the sweat this time, but sex. He smelled like sex and alcohol and cologne.

"I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to go," I whimpered, losing myself in his presence. "Thank you so much for tonight. It was perfectly... perfect." Words escaped me so I borrowed his to describe the evening. I was a literary person, an author for God's sake, and I couldn't find the adjectives to describe how wonderful the night was that we'd shared together.

"I'd do anything for you." His lips brushed mine, and I opened my mouth, granting him entrance to deepen the kiss. He tasted sweeter than he smelled; like chocolate and cream and champagne.

In an instant, a movement that I couldn't follow with my head taking a late night swim, we were out of our chairs, and my back was being pressed into the chaise lounge. Despite his intoxication, his mouth and touch were not sloppy or rough, just hungry and passionate.

"I want you," he breathed.

"I'm yours," I replied just as breathlessly, feeling him thrust up into my core. "Please, Edward," I begged. _Help me forget everything._

He rested his forehead on mine and stared into my eyes. A war was going on in his mind. He wanted me right there in that room; on the lounge. I wanted him to take me right there. But, as a knock sounded on the closed door, the carnal thoughts dissipated.

"Not here," he whispered, swallowing hard, pushing the urge down to an acceptable level.

Edward stood while simultaneously adjusting himself and answered the door, leaving me to collect myself. It was the maitre d' asking if there was anything else they could do for us. He'd returned Edward's credit card to him, and left us to collect our things.

Edward escorted me down the stairs, rather wobbly if I might add, and outside to the limo where Marcus stood holding the door open for both of us.

"I hope your evening was as you planned, Mr. Cullen, Ms. Swan," he said with a smile and a nod, completely opposite of what I was sure was a scowl earlier.

"It was delightful," Edward winked, squeezing my hand. "Totally worth the effort and stress."

Scooting into the limo, I kept my hand in Edward's, unwilling to let go of the electricity that was coursing through our veins.

"If you could find a longer way back to the hotel, I'd greatly appreciate it," he whispered to Marcus.

Edward didn't see it as he crawled in next to me, but I did. Marcus' face fell from a smile into a hard sneer. His eyes turned black, the same black from the first time we'd met, and with one swift slam of the door, he was gone as was every thought of him. All that mattered right now was Edward.

We hadn't even left the curb, yet, and he'd hooked up his iPod again to the stereo system, choosing a playlist of music that was hypnotic and calming and sensual. Alpha's "Firefly (Receiver Mix)" was the first song to play through the speakers. I had no idea what the words meant to this beautiful song, but the way they were sung with the beat was so erotic and mesmerizing. They could soothe my racing mind but speed up my racing heart at the same time.

As the limo angled into the road, Edward's mouth was on my neck hungrily and his hand was sliding up under the hem of my dress slowly. When he gripped my ass and pulled me on top of him, straddling his hardness, I whimpered and pressed myself into him.

"Here?" I asked in his ear, low and sexy. Despite my question, my fingers had already pushed his suit jacket off of his shoulders and were in the process of loosening his tie. The zipper on my dress was already making its way down... down... down. Oh, yes, this was going to happen...

"Here," he whispered. The dress hung loosely on me now in his lap, having been fully unzipped. Raising my arms, he pulled it over my head, fluffing my hair so that it fell like curtains around my nude shoulders and breasts. Only now could he tell that I hadn't worn any lingerie under my dress.

White Buttons. There were so many white buttons. One after the other, I popped them off, pulling in the opposite direction on the two openings to his shirt. So many white buttons on the floor, contrasting with the black carpet.

His fingers were meticulously working on his pants zipper, as they were his only article of clothing left. Lifting my bare and throbbing hips off of him, he slipped them and his boxer briefs to the floor and toed off his shoes and socks in the process. His tongue swept out as he was leaned forward and his lips enclosed on my hardened nipple where he sucked lightly.

"My heels?" I asked. They were the only thing left on either of our naked bodies besides my jewelry.

There was a pause, as he positioned me on top of him, right where we'd both find pleasure. He looked my torso up and down reverently before he scanned up my neck to my face, stopping on my eyes. His hands rested on my hips, his thumbs in the front and his other fingers digging into my ass possessively. They flexed.

"On," he breathed.

With one loud, resonating moan escaping my mouth, he guided my wet core toward his hips, sheathing his length in my wet warmth. Down... down... down. My painstakingly slow descent stopped when he'd completely filled me with each and every inch of himself. Each and every inch of man.

I was mind-numbingly stretched to the hilt. Every one of my nerve endings were alight, pulsating with the welcome intrusion.

Our eyes locked in a stare of longing and desire. In them, he passed to me his devotion, and I passed to him my love and hope. And, then his hands were on the back of my head drawing my lips to his.

The seconds ticked away with every groan and thrust and breath and sweat bead that dropped from our skin onto the leather seat as we passed the world by outside. City lights. Residents. Tourists. All oblivious to our intimate dance. All oblivious to my excruciating pain.

"I'll love you forever," he panted as 1,000 seconds had already passed.

His fingertips trailed tenderly down my spine and over the swell of my ass at 1,500 seconds.

His tongue licked along the flushed skin of my neck as I came around him for the third time at 2,000 seconds, tremors rippling through me in pleasure, hugging my body to his with the only strength I had left...the very small amount of strength that remained.

And, at 2,005 seconds, Edward unraveled in my arms, groaning my name, begging me, needing me.

"Bella," he gasped. "Don't let go...ever."

_Two weeks..._

_1,209,600 seconds..._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

"Never."

* * *

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

***Bella's outfit and jewelry can be found in my profile, as well as the hotel suite photos and the restaurant photos.***

Oh, Bella... What are you doing, honey? What exactly is this plan of yours? I think you're going to give my readers major heartfail in the near future! Not cool! I need them to stick around through the very end.

Do you think Edward was going to propose when the sommelier walked in the room? He was pretty upset, and then that sad glance at her fingers on her left hand... My guess is yes.

Nothing ever seems to go as planned, does it? Not a damn thing...

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	21. Chapter 21 Plus que ma propre vie

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

**Thank you so much for being so patient while I worked this writer's block crap out. I hadn't planned on posting this early because I honestly didn't plan on having it done, but here it is.**

**I also want to thank RCD-Alice for rec'ing this story on the IMDB message board for Eclipse. I've been writing this almost non-stop since the beginning of December. When I say almost non-stop, I mean it. When I go home after work, I start writing. When I wake up on the weekends, I start writing. And, the writing doesn't stop until I go to bed at night. Sometimes it gets to be too much (hence the writer's block - my mind needed a break, I think), but it's things like what RCD-Alice and budtrixjake did, plus all of the amazing reviews, that make me so excited to wake up in the morning and do this all over again.**

**Your kindness and generosity don't go unnoticed or unappreciated, and I would hope any humbled author would be as thankful.  
**

Rated M: **A N G S T, language,** violence, lemons

_

* * *

_**Chapter 21**

**Plus que ma propre vie**

**SUNDAY - THIRTEEN DAYS**

_Pound. Pound. Pound._

Was my brain actually trying to break its way out of my skull? Could that happen?

"Ooohhh," I groaned, shifting my body in its not too comfortable position.

Two large hands pressed gently on my temple and forehead, massaging ever so lightly.

_Ahhhhh...relief. Stay in there, brain. I need you for a little while longer._

"Go back to sleep, baby," the man attached to the hands whispered, quietly enough that it didn't bother me. "I'll wake you when we're home."

I couldn't open my eyes even if I tried, so I did as he told me. Every time I drank that much alcohol, I always swore I'd never drink again when I woke up the next morning with a raging hangover, but here I was again in the same predicament I'd found myself many a time. And, this was a wine hangover, which was always the worst for me. I allowed my body to relax again, hoping the rest would ease the headache and overall queasy feeling.

What felt like only minutes later, I was sitting up in the backseat looking out my window as we drove into town past the post office and then the grocery store. It seemed like years that we'd been gone, not four days.

Forks held an eeriness now, and I couldn't put my finger on why it felt that way. Was it because of Jake and James? Was it because everything in this quaint Northwest Washington town had been turned upside down over the past few months – first for the better then to the best and now to the tragic? Turning to Edward to ask if the town felt different to him, my eyes landed on an empty seat.

"Marcus?" I asked. "Where's Edward?"

"He had to unexpectedly go back to Los Angeles for another photo shoot with Ms. Paul. I dropped him off at the airport in Port Angeles with the promise of taking you home."

"Oh," I replied.

"Mr. Cullen didn't want to wake you, so he told me to tell you that he'd be back tomorrow around noon. He'll speak with you later tonight when he gets back to his house."

Nothing felt right about this. Why had Edward left me alone? He was so adamant about how I needed to be at his side at all times over the next two weeks, but here I was alone already.

Pulling up to the house, dad's cruiser was in the driveway but it was empty. Edward must have called him and asked him to meet me here; to look after me until he got home from LA. Marcus helped me carry my bags to the front steps before he left, and then I decided to walk around the house looking for him because he didn't have a key to my new front door and had probably started to wander when he got bored with waiting. A full loop around the house later, I was standing on the porch again, alone, without having found him. I shrugged and went to put my key in the lock on the door. With the light force of inserting the key, the door popped open quietly. It hadn't been shut or locked, and the alarm wasn't going off.

_Nothing_ felt right about this.

I walked into the foyer cautiously and looked around. Each room downstairs was empty, quiet and untouched. My eyes found their way looking up toward the ceiling, toward the second floor, and my feet found their way toward the staircase.

"Dad, are you here?" I asked, my voice carrying far in the silence.

There was no response, so I kept going until I was at my bedroom door. The room was empty, and I was about to turn around and go to the surveillance room when I heard an odd muffled noise come from my library. It sounded like choking.

_"No!"  
_

I ran around the bed, moved the curtains aside and flipped the switch in the dark room, and that's when I saw him in the center of the room. My legs buckled, all the air escaping my lungs like I'd been punched in the stomach. He was standing in the middle of the room next to the piano in his police uniform. Wildflowers and tall grasses grew up around his feet and the piano just like the paintings had come to life in my library. But his weren't the only feet in the meadow. My eyes traveled up the legs of the man that stood behind my father until they met cold blue eyes staring back at me.

Jockeying between icy blue and warm brown, I felt the tears welling up. My father's neck was being held in the crook of James' elbow, and his work-issued gun was being pointed at his own head.

"Say goodbye," James hissed.

"Daddy," I sobbed, reaching my hand out, taking a step toward him. James dragged my father back a step as I took another to be nearer. "I'm so sorry. It's supposed to be _me._"

I flickered my gaze to James and begged from the farthest depths of my heart as the tears streamed down my face. My throat was so strained as I pushed the words out. "James, it's _me_ you want! Kill _me!_ I survived the accident so that I could die in the place of someone else. My plan was for you to kill _ME!_" I fell to the soil on my knees unable to hold myself up any longer. My heart had completely broken open as I screamed my pleas.

James' hold tightened, and his stare hardened.

"Live," my dad choked out, barely able to speak with his throat being held the way it was by James. Then I heard the pulling of the trigger. My eyes closed as a scream erupted violently from my chest, but before the actual blast from the gun was heard, I was being pulled against someone's chest.

"Wake up, Bella." Quick, soothing hands were running along my heated skin – across my forehead and down my cheek and along my neck. "You're having a nightmare. It's not real."

A few seconds passed before what was said registered in my mind. It was just a dream. I was still in the car with Edward, and he had not left me to go to Los Angeles. My father wasn't about to be killed by James.

"It was just a dream," I whispered, feeling the ache in my throat.

_But... my dreams are coming true._

My eyes flew open, and the muted but bright light streaming through the clouds pierced my vision like laser beams to my retinas.

"Dad!" I nearly cried, fumbling in my purse for my phone with trembling hands. "I've got to call my dad!"

"Bella? What the hell is going on?" Edward yelled, helping me hold my wrists still as I dialed with my thumbs. His head snapped to the front. "Marcus, pull over! Something's wrong!"

_Ring. Ring. Ring._

"Pick up," I whispered. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop the shaking or the tears that were starting to fall as each ring passed without an answer. My body was collapsing in the seat, and Edward was using all of his strength to keep me upright. "Pick up."

_Ring._

"Chief Swan."

I swallowed hard, now barely able to croak the words out. "Dad...Daddy?"

"Bella? What's wrong?" A noise in the background told me that he stood up quickly and knocked his chair over.

"You're okay?" I asked. Edward was looking at me so concerned.

"What happened, Isabella? Tell me right now."

"I'm fine," I sobbed, wiping the tears off my face at hearing his voice. "Are you okay? Are you safe?"

"Of course I am, sweetheart," he sighed. "Why are you crying and asking me this?"

I hiccuped. "I...I had a bad dream...and you were hurt...and I couldn't do anything to save you...I was so helpless."

Edward pulled me into his arms where I continued to cry.

"Oh, Bells. I'm fine. Don't go worrying about your old man, now, ya hear? It was just a nightmare."

I used the heel of my palm to wipe my face as Edward combed the ends of my hair with his fingers down my back.

"So, you're still having those dreams, huh? After all these years?" he asked.

I sniffled and hiccuped once more, hoping it was my last as my body started to calm down. "What do you mean?"

"Well, honey...after...after the accident, I would wake up in the middle of the night to you screaming and crying in bed." I don't know if it was the therapy sessions I'd been doing with Esme, but I didn't flinch when he mentioned the accident. Even more shocking was how he seemed mostly okay when he mentioned it. "You were screaming my name, begging me not to die. It was heartbreaking. For months I went in there and calmed you down... by singing our song to you."

"What?" I breathed.

"You knew this," he said incredulously.

"No, dad. I didn't know this." For months this had gone on, and I didn't know? My dad comforted me when I cried at night?

"You didn't have them every night, but a lot of them. And, then they just... stopped."

_Jake._

My throat started to tighten thinking about Jake and this whole fucked up mess, and I had to get off the phone quickly.

"Well, I just needed to make sure you were safe. The dream was very real. Just...I don't know. Be careful, okay? I love you, dad," I said in a rush.

He'd barely been able to say that he loved me back before I'd thrown the phone into my purse. Glancing out the window, I saw that we were driving again and we were coming up on Forks.

"Will you talk to me?" Edward asked.

There was no point in hiding it. I'd obviously had a nightmare involving my father, and there was no way Edward would let it go until I said something. "James had my father," I whispered as quietly as I could so Marcus wouldn't hear.

Did Marcus probably know the gist of what was going on? Probably. He was around Edward a lot during the day and had probably heard conversations, and then there was the fact that he'd whisked us off to Seattle for several days. That had to come off as a little strange. I had no idea how much Marcus knew.

"Did he have a gun in your dream?" Edward asked.

"Yeah," I sighed, wiping away another tear. "I woke up here in the car and you were gone. Marcus had dropped you off at the airport in Port Angeles because you had to go to LA, and when he took me home, James had dad in my library with his own gun pointed at his head."

Marcus was looking at me in the rearview mirror. Hearing his name had obviously sparked his interest in my dream.

"Was Jake there?" Edward asked.

"I don't think so. God, Edward. There was nothing I could do. James gave me barely any time to say goodbye to him before he was pulling the trigger."

I was starting to get worked up again. This was the last thing I needed before so much more of my pain started to surface. His arms tightened around my body, pulling me closer so that he could kiss the top of my head. "I won't let it happen, Bella. Nothing is going to happen to you or anybody else."

I sighed knowing that wasn't true.

Twenty minutes later we were pulling up to the house, and I was beyond relieved that the driveway was empty. Edward unlocked the front door and held my hand as we walked into the bedroom. It was almost 10:30, so we had just over an hour to get ready and head back into town. Emmett and Jane were waiting for Edward on set and expected him there at noon.

The drive back into town was uneventful until we turned the corner to the warehouse. Edward was filming on a portable set due to the misty weather that didn't coincide with the weather the originally-scheduled scene called for.

"Son of a bitch," Edward muttered, sitting up straighter in our shared backseat.

I followed where his attention was directed and saw what had him in such distress. An estimated 100-person crowd was gathered at the gate, blocking our way through. As soon as they saw us, they migrated toward our sedan like a flock of desensitized birds in a tourist destination looking for a handout.

"Shit, come here, baby." He opened his arms and pulled me against his side, cupping his hand on the side of my face to shield them from getting good photos of me.

"Sir?" Marcus asked.

"It's the only way in," Edward growled. "Just...get us through it. The doors are locked, right?"

The faint humming click of the locks ran through the vehicle. I'd barely had any time to process what was going on.

"Edward," I whimpered, trying to mold myself against his side.

Just as I said it, I heard the first yelling outside the car, and I flinched and buried my face in my shoulder.

"_Are you and Tanya still together, Edward?"_

"_Are you seeking treatment for your sex addiction?"_

"_Bella, why did you take him back after what he did to you?"_

His fingers tightened on my upper arm to comfort me. "Please forgive me," he murmured against the top of my head, and I knotted his shirt in my fingers.

"_Did you think you wouldn't get caught?"_

"_Is it true that Tanya is pregnant with your baby?"_

A banging on the glass was followed by another jab. _"Edward Cullen, everybody! The most hated bachelor in America!"_

My body started to shake in rage. The tears were welling up in my eyes behind Edward's hand. I was seconds away from snapping, and then I heard the thud of someone trying the locked door handle. Edward forcefully pulled me farther into the left side of the car, away from the door. My head jerked around to see the offending photographer, and I saw him.

James stood right outside the right window with his camera.

"Bella, put your head down!" Edward yelled, his voice growing muffled in my ears as he unsuccessfully tried to cover my face again.

All of the yelling outside and inside and clicks of the cameras seemed to go silent as my eyes stayed locked on James' eyes, his again on the opposite side of glass. I could have sworn that I could hear his breathing and his heartbeat.

Then, all of a sudden, everybody was gone, and we were through the gate.

Edward's harsh tone brought me back into reality when there was actual silence surrounding us. "What the hell were you doing? Why wouldn't you let me hide your face?"

"I...I don't know," I whispered, turning around and looking out the back window as the gate and people disappeared around a curve in the road.

Emmett was outside standing by himself when we pulled into a parking spot.

"Hey, Bella," he smiled sadly, giving me a strong, brotherly hug as I took a step outside the car. "We'll get this figured out, okay? Edward and I won't let anything happen to you."

"What the hell is all that?" Edward asked, exasperated. His arm waved in the direction we just came from. "James is out there! I thought you tightened security?"

"I _did._" Annoyance laced Emmett's remark. "The gate has been moved back 50 feet, and it's around the curve now, so they can't get any pictures. We've also increased guard presence around the entire set. Outside that gate, we have no control over them, though, unless it's our filming location. She'll be safe wherever we are."

With his arm still around my shoulders, he started pulling me toward the door with Edward following closely behind. Operation Keep Bella at Arm's Length had begun.

**MONDAY - TWELVE DAYS**

_My Dearest Edward,_

_I __loved__ you. Do you know that?_

_Plus que ma propre vie..._

_More than my own life..._

_Today is a beautiful day. For the past three hours, I've been sitting here watching you do what you love, in what is probably one of the most beautiful places on the coast of Washington. The sky is clear for once. The ocean is almost serene as it laps lazily against the rocks and sand below. The faces of those around us are calmer than they were yesterday, even Jane's. I don't think she's as mad at you anymore. It's a good day._

_I only have twelve days before I say goodbye to you. Twelve days. That will never be enough time to express to you what you have done for me and how you made me feel. I never knew what it felt like to be loved until you loved me. Your unwavering passion and need never ceased to envelope my heart in bliss. How could I have possibly shown you that much love in return in our short time together?_

_I had to do this, Edward. It was the only way to show you the depth of my love. I had no other choice._

"We're gonna need that silver car moved!" Emmett bellowed down the road, startling me from the letter I'd been writing. "It's in the shot!"

My butt was glued to Emmett's director's chair today. The weather had decided to cooperate and follow the forecast, so Emmett called us all at five o'clock this morning to get us up and on location early. They were going to try to squeeze a day and a half of shots into today to make the rest of the week more bearable since the forecast was calling for more rain later this week.

The place he'd chosen for this shot was one of my favorites in the area. The road he was yelling down hugged the ocean and up ahead, where the car was in the way, was a cliff that jutted out into the water. It was a beautiful backdrop for the romantic scene, which was depicting Peter and Charlotte when they were first getting to know each other. The characters would share their first kiss overlooking the waters below.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Edward walking up to me, so I closed the notebook I was writing in so that he wouldn't see what I was doing.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing at it in my hands.

"Oh, nothing," I said, waving it around. "Just writing something."

His face lit up with delight. "A new book?"

"Yeah, something like that." I hugged it to my chest, knowing that these were the most important words I would ever write. They were sacred and meant only for his eyes, but there was so much more that needed to go into it before he could read them. There was so much more that would happen.

His lips formed into a smirk. "Not going to tell me about it, huh? Keeping it a secret?"

I nodded and bit my lip. He laughed and leaned forward to kiss my temple. "Okay, baby. Will I get to read it someday?" he whispered in my ear.

"Yes," I said. "Someday soon. Just not now."

A red car pulled up behind us, and I turned around to see Rosalie step out. Even though she was the director's wife, it didn't deter many of the crew members from staring at her as she walked over to us. Emmett was busy with Victoria at the moment, so she came over to me first.

"Hey, you two."

"Hi, Rose," we both said in unison. I got up from the chair with the notebook tucked under my arm and hugged her. It had been too long.

"Now, Bella," she said. "Emmett said you were going to be stuck on set for the next two weeks, but your girlfriends and I have a problem with that. You're coming with us during the day on Friday to Port Angeles."

I heard Edward's breath catch next to me.

"We've all taken that day off, and we figured we go shopping, grab some lunch, maybe go to the spa or the movie. It's a chance to catch up. It seems like we're almost always working or sick or not here. We love you and miss you, Bella."

_My way to tie up loose ends._ I turned my head to Edward and begged him with my eyes as I held Rosalie's hands. I hated to leave his side for even a second because it was a second that I'd never get back, but I needed this. It was something that had to be done before I was gone.

"Please," I mouthed. He was in agony behind the mask he'd put on his face. His eyes kept darting their focus back and forth between mine as he read my plea. He'd told me in Seattle he hated tell me 'no' to anything I requested, and I hoped that still stood. "Please," I mouthed again.

His body slumped in front of me in defeat, and I knew.

I turned my head back to Rosalie and nodded. With a squeal and a hug, she ran off to Emmett who was now going over Edward's schedule of television and premiere appearances with Jane for his upcoming movie with Tanya.

"Don't be scared," I whispered before he could say anything. "I promise to be careful. I promise you that I'll stay with them at all times. I need this, Edward. They are my friends, and I miss them."

"Bella, I won't be there. If something goes wrong..." he said quietly.

"I won't put myself in any kind of position where I'd need you there for me."

"You never have," he whispered. "But, it's still happened."

"Edward, I promise you that nothing will happen." Because nothing _could_ happen. I had twelve more days with him, and I was going to celebrate every single second of those days with those that I loved. It was not enough, but it was all I had. "I will come back to you."

Disregarding those around us, I stretched up on the tips of my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck so that I could kiss him with all of the determination inside of me. Our time wasn't up, yet.

**TUESDAY - ELEVEN DAYS**

_Now I only have eleven days left for you to feel my love. Yesterday you agreed to let me go with Rosalie, Alice and Angela to Port Angeles on Friday. You will never know how much that meant to me. I know it was one of the hardest things you've ever had to do; to put trust in me when this situation was so out of control. But, I needed this._

_Alice has been my best friend since kindergarten. I remember the first day like it was yesterday. Walking into that large room was the scariest moment of my existence to that point. My mother would be leaving me there for almost four hours with my teacher Ms. Cope, whom I'd only briefly seen at kindergarten round-up but was too shy to talk to, and then a handful of children that I'd never met._

_Mom had bent down to my eye level as soon as we walked in the door. She said, "You're not an ordinary five year old, Bella. You're extraordinary. This is the first step in finding out what you can do. Don't be afraid of it. You have a creative, intelligent mind beyond your years, and this will help you express it in a fun and exciting way. Now, go make friends and be extraordinary. I'll pick you up after school is over and we'll go get ice cream and talk about what you did."_

_After her kiss on the cheek, the teacher took my hand and sat me down at a small desk toward the back of the class. The first thing we did was take roll call. Ms. Cope said, "Mary Brandon," and nobody responded. "Mary? Is there a Mary Brandon in this room?" She looked around and her eyes fell upon a little girl in the front row with short dark hair. She was almost half my size and barely taller than the chair she was in. "Dear, I think you're name is Mary Brandon. Am I right?"_

_The little girl looked confused and said, "No, my name is Alice Brandon, lady." The entire classroom laughed at her except me, and she blushed in embarrassment. She slouched down in her chair to hide herself even more. When the teacher got to my name, she asked for "Isabella Swan," and I decided not to answer. "Isabella, I think that's you in the back." She was pointing at me._

_Alice Brandon looked up and followed her finger to my face. "No, my name is Bella Swan, lady," I said with a nod of my head. I was just as stubborn then as I am now. Alice smiled at me, and I smiled at her, and the rest was history. From that first day on, we huddled in the corner on a beanbag chair while I read her a book every rest period with our milk and graham crackers. She was my best friend, and I was hers._

_There are two things I want you to give her for me._

_First, if you don't want to sell it, I would like it if you could give her the diamond and tourmaline necklace. She's loved it since she saw it, and just like I carried a piece of you and my mother with me every time I wore it, she can carry a piece of me with her._

_Second, please give her the children's books that I have in my library – the ones that my mother used to read to me. Brandon will be starting kindergarten soon, and I want her to have those so she can read to him every night._

_I guess, can you do one more thing for me? Tell her that I love her and that I'm sorry._

"Marcus, can you come here?" Edward yelled toward the parking lot. I closed the notebook and slyly wiped away a tear that had escaped.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked when he'd made it all the way to us on the beach.

"Yesterday I agreed to let Bella go to Port Angeles with her three friends on Friday. I've put a lot of thought into this, and I'd really feel more comfortable if you took them there and kept an eye on them. I'll drive her Volvo to work. I know it's not in your job description to be a bodyguard, and I'm not asking you to be one necessarily, but you're the only other person besides me and Emmett that knows who I don't want getting near her."

Marcus' face was slightly shocked with Edward's question.

"You remember the man that we had you take back to his car the night of the reception?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "Jacob Black?"

"That's him. He is person number one that cannot get near her. James is the next, and after all these months, I think you know what he looks like."

"The angry blonde paparazzi guy?" Marcus asked.

"The one and only," Edward replied. "I'll give you an extra $100,000 to escort Bella wherever she needs to go safely. Is that something you can agree to?"

His eyes widened just as much as mine did. _One hundred thousand dollars?_ "Edward-" I started to object with a shake of my head, but Marcus interrupted me.

"Yes, Mr. Cullen. I'll escort Bella and her friends wherever they please, and I will keep an eye out for James and Jake."

Edward seemed to relax. He turned to me and took my face in his hands. "Complain all you want, but this is the only way I'm allowing this to happen."

I nodded my head and swallowed thickly.

"Marcus, if Bella needs to go anywhere else over the next two weeks, can you take her there, too? I don't like keeping her on set when I know she's miserable being here. I can already tell she's been upset today."

**WEDNESDAY – TEN DAYS**

_It's raining again, and it's not supposed to stop. Maybe it's a sign of what's to come. I don't know. Ten days, baby. I only have ten more days with you. I find myself afraid to go to sleep after we make love and not because of the dreams. I know that when I wake up, it will be one less day that I'll get to see your face. Despite how I've known this was what I had to do, it's getting harder to wrap my brain around it. Please forgive me._

_I need to continue on with stories on my friends today._

_Rosalie Hale was one of those girls that was destined to be popular. She transferred to our school when she was in the fourth grade and when Alice and I were in the second grade. Rosalie commanded a presence from the second she stepped foot in our halls. The boys worshiped at her feet, and the girls longed for her hair and clothes._

_Then you had me and Alice. Tiny brunettes with pale skin and knobbly knees. The epitome of not cool. Rosalie had never spoken a word to us until one day when we were in the hall walking back from recess and were being bullied by two boys that were in her class._

"_Hey!" she'd yelled down the hall. "Step away from those girls or I will jam my slap bracelet so far up your butts that I'll pull it out your throat and then slap it on your tongues."_

_Alice and I stood there, kind of scared of her more than the boys that had just run away, while she walked up to us._

"_Cute scrunchie," she said, pointing at my hair._

"_I like your jellies," she said to Alice._

_We were a trio from that moment on. She never cared that we were younger than her or had less money or that she was always protecting us. She was our friend._

_I would like it if you could give her all of the pictures of us girls that are on the walls and shelves in the house. She took us under her wing as we all grew up, and I'd like it if she had the option of putting them up on her wall at work with all of her "kids." Though she's only two years older than me, she was a motherly figure after my real mother had died. Her strength got me through the days sometimes._

_Could you do something else for me? Tell her that I love her and that I'm sorry._

I glanced up from my letter and saw Emmett walking through a scene with Edward. Edward had been so focused these past few days, and they'd gotten so much done. I could see how much he loved what he did, and it made my heart swell knowing that he had something that fulfilled him.

_You're happy, Edward. I can tell you are when you're working. Your eyes are alight and you put everything you have into each scene no matter how minor or important. Your work is an inspiration to so many people, including myself. I don't think I've ever told you that before. Don't ever give it up. You put your heart and soul into acting, and it comes out so beautifully._

_Speaking of things coming out beautifully, I haven't told you about Angela. She came to join us when Alice and I were freshman in high school. She wore glasses, was gangly and carried a camera around her neck. The Algebra teacher had her sit in the available seat right behind me, and as soon as she sat in it, I turned around._

"_Welcome to Forks High," I said. "Why do you have a camera, if you don't mind me asking?"_

"_I just like taking pictures," she shrugged shyly. "I don't go anywhere without it. I'm afraid I'll miss something important that should be captured for the world to see."_

"_What do you take pictures of?"_

"_Mostly people but some landscapes and animals. People are far more interesting to me. Their expressions are captivating."_

"_That's cool," I replied. "I'm Bella, by the way. This is Alice." I pointed my thumb to her next to me._

"_I'm Angela," she said._

_Two days later when I came into class again, there were two photos, one each on my desk and Alice's. It was the two of us at lunch laughing so carefree and unaware of everyone around us. The lighting in the photo made us look beautiful, something I never saw in myself. Alice, yes. But myself? No. I turned around to Angela who sat quietly in her desk looking anywhere but at me._

"_Do you want to sit with us at lunch?" I asked. That's when I saw what she meant about people's expressions being captivating. Her scared, timid face morphed into one of pure joy and acceptance. We were four from that moment on. Four of the best friends you could ever find._

_I want you to give her something for me. When I was in the hospital after you found me in the library, she told me that she wanted me to teach her how to play piano. I will never get to do that, but I would like it if you would give her my mother's piano. I hope that her playing will come out as beautifully as her photos. I know it will._

_Also, tell her that I love her and that I'm sorry._

I closed the notebook, not ready to write what was next. The last thing I wanted to do was to cry right now after seeing all the beauty that was in this world that would soon be leaving. I'd save it until tomorrow.

Right now I needed my Edward.

**THURSDAY – NINE DAYS**

_What am I doing, Edward? I'm leaving you behind. __My father is going to be alone. __You both love me so much. Will this break you? I felt like I was taking control of the situation, but nothing seems like it's in my grasp anymore. The way you held me last night... I never wanted you to let go. I wanted you to hold onto me and keep me from doing this. I so badly wanted you to find this letter and stop me. But, I can't not do this. It's the only way for you to live. They'll never stop unless I stop them myself._

_In nine days, I will have gone to my father and told him everything that you and I have gone through. _

_In nine days, I will have left the police station and found James and Jake and told them what I'd done. _

_In nine days, my life will be over._

_You told me I was the bravest and strongest person you ever knew once. Was what I did brave? Was it strong? You're reading this after it's already happened. I don't know what the outcome was after I was taken from this world. Please tell me they were arrested for my murder and will never harm you again. Are you safe and happy? Are you able to fall in love with someone else without fear?_

_I hope so. God, I hope so. This is all for you, Edward. You need to go on without me. Please promise me you will. My heart is aching with the uncertainty._

_Do you think I'm in Heaven? I'm afraid that I'm in Hell like Jake said I would be. I don't want to go there, but if I have to, I will. Please don't follow after me wherever I am._

_Will you do something for me? Can you give the paintings of the meadow to my father and explain the meaning behind them? He will be alone, and if he can have those, he will see what a beautiful world this place is even with me and mom gone, and he will have a piece of us with him whenever he looks at them. He will be surrounded by us at all times. It's the best that I can do besides watch over him if I'm in Heaven. I hope that I'm in Heaven._

_Tell him that I love him, and that I'm sorry. If nothing else, tell him that.  
_

_Over the next nine days, I will be showing you how much I love you with everything that I am. I hope it is enough. I hope you know and can feel it. I hope that you feel me around you now as you read this. I'll always be with you. I'll never leave._

_These words are my last that I will ever write. They are yours. My books are also yours. I want you to have every single one of them on every shelf in the store and in my library besides the children's books for Alice and Brandon. Before you came along, I lost myself in the stories to get through the days. They were just words and paper, much like this is, but they held a heartbeat and a life of their own. I was moved to laughter and tears because of those words on paper. They were my soul for so long until I met... you._

_You have my soul now, Edward. I don't know if I get to take it with me wherever I go, so I'm giving it to you. I don't want it without you anyways.  
_

_I am in love with you, Edward Anthony Cullen. I have been since I first met you. You stole my heart and have kept it safe from day one. You will be the last thing I see before I go. I will think of every moment we have ever shared and smile because I was happy. Don't ever doubt that. I've always been happy. And, in love. So in love because I was loved by someone that was there for me in my darkest hour and brought me back._

_Thank you for telling me that you loved me. Thank you for getting me to open my eyes. Thank you for kissing me and dancing with me. I will take all of these memories with me wherever I go. Hopefully Heaven, hopefully not Hell, but wherever I need to go for you to stay on this Earth.  
_

_I love you with every ounce of being in me. I'm sorry I lied and have had to let go. Please forgive me. And...  
_

_L I V E  
_

_Your Beautiful Bella_

My fingers ripped out the eight pages of the letter to him quickly and folded them in half, afraid that I would change them or erase them or burn them. Reaching down into my bag, I pulled out an envelope that was already pre-addressed and stamped. I slid the letter inside. After moistening the adhesive with my tongue, I folded down the flap and pressed my thumbs down to secure the pieces together. My final words were locked away, ready to be mailed to him. He wouldn't read them until he was back in Los Angeles, well after I already gone...well after it was too late to stop me.

I stood from my seat and found Edward in the dressing room changing into another costume.

"Hey," I said, smiling at him, trying to hide my fear. "I need to go to the post office. You said Marcus could take me wherever I needed to go?"

His face fell into panic as soon as I said it, but he tried to smooth it. "Ummm, yeah. Hold on. Let me call him and get him in here."

Marcus walked in a few minutes later carrying a wet umbrella. "Yes, Mr. Cullen?"

"Bella needs to go to the post office. I need you to take her there safely and bring her back as soon as she's done. They are both out there, so don't do anything that could put her in danger."

"I understand, sir."

"You both need to exchange phone numbers just in case you get separated, though there should be no reason why you would be."

He handed me his phone, and I gave him mine, and we both programmed them in.

Edward pulled me to the side. "Please be careful, love," he whispered.

I sighed. "Nothing is going to happen. I'll be back in fifteen minutes. I promise."

He leaned down and kissed me with such intensity that I almost broke down in his arms. God, I was going to break him. I was leaving for fifteen minutes, and he was a mess.

I had to break the kiss or I'd never leave his side.

"Fifteen minutes," I said again, and I backed out of the room and left with Marcus by my side.

"Do you have what you need to mail with you?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's in my bag," I said, giving it a pat for good measure. "Can you make sure you get me back in time? I don't want to worry him."

"Of course, Miss Swan." He opened the back door for me, and I slid in.

As we pulled through the gate, I diverted my eyes to the right side of the vehicle away from James who was on the left. I couldn't look at him, yet. I didn't want to look at his blue eyes again until my final minutes. They were too cold and hollow. Looking out the window, I saw Seth standing there sullenly. He wiggled his fingers in a small wave, and I smiled sadly back at him. Why couldn't they all be like him?

I pulled out my phone and found the police station in my contacts now that I was officially away from Edward. After only two rings, Charlie picked up.

"Chief Swan."

"Hi, dad," I said quietly.

"Hey, Bells. What's up?"

"I was wondering if you were going to be working next Friday."

"Yeah. Billy and I are going fishing the next day, so I'm working a double shift."

"Billy?" I asked, perking up.

He laughed a little. "He called last night. Looks like we're going to try to work out this friendship thing. He said that if he knew where Jake was, he'd tell me, but he doesn't. I don't know how we'll do this with me out to beat the shit out of his son and then arrest him, but we're going to try."

I smiled. How could I not? If they could heal their friendship, I would leave my father with his best friend there for him.

"Why are you wondering if I'm working next Friday?"

I cleared my throat. "Ummm... I just need to talk to you about something."

His voice went from normal to stern instantly. "Isabella, I want you to tell me what's wrong right now. I know you too well. You're in trouble. I have sensed this for a while now."

"Dad, I can't tell you right now. Not yet. Just give me until next Friday, alright? I'll tell you absolutely everything. I'm fine, so don't worry about this. Promise me you won't worry."

He paused before speaking. "You'll tell me everything next Friday?"

"Every last detail."

"And, you're fine and safe and you're not in trouble?"

"All of that, dad," I lied.

"Then... I promise."

A minute later, Marcus pulled into a parking spot outside the stone building.

"I'd like to run this inside," I said. "I don't want rain to get it wet in the outside mail receptacle."

"Sure, let me run you inside with the umbrella."

I stood in front of the Out of Town mail slot and stared at my letter to Edward in my hands as it hovered halfway in and halfway out of the opening. This was it. Once I let go of the envelope and let it slide down into the bin on the other side of the wall, there was no going back, though it never was an option to begin with. At least he would know why. I would never have the opportunity to tell him except through this letter.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and let go.

**FRIDAY – EIGHT DAYS**

"Isn't this the life?" Rosalie practically groaned. "Who knew someone touching my feet could be so mother fucking relaxing like...all ooooover?"

The other three of us girls giggled and threw our hands over our faces at Rosalie's lack of mouth filter.

"God! This is almost as good as screwing Emmett."

"Rose!" we all yelled at the same time, trying to control our laughter.

"What?" she said, lifting her head off the headrest of the seat she was in. "I said almost."

We'd been in Port Angeles since ten this morning, and our pedicure was almost over. We were headed out to lunch next at this cute little Italian restaurant that Angela loved.

Edward had called at least ten times already out of concern for me, and I had to reassure him each time that I was following his rules and being safe. And, each time, I'd told him that I loved him. I couldn't hang up without saying that. When we'd paid and tipped the women responsible for our lovely toes, we ran outside in the rain to the sedan where Marcus stood with the doors open.

"La Bella Italia next, ladies?" he asked as we jumped in laughing about getting so wet.

"Yep!" they all exclaimed with enthusiasm. They all got in the backseat, and I sat in the front. It felt natural almost to be up here. If the reason that I knew Marcus the most wasn't good enough for me sitting up front, I wanted them to bond in the backseat together. The four of us would in eight days be a trio again. I wanted to be near them and enjoy one last girl's day, but I also thought it might be best to pull away.

Parking outside the restaurant, Marcus got out and escorted each of us up to the door two at a time so that we wouldn't get wet this time.

"Enjoy your lunch," he said. "Do you mind if I go and grab a bite to eat at the McDonald's down the block? I'll be back in five minutes and eat it in my car."

Alice spoke up. "You can come inside here and eat with us if you want."

"Oh, no, please. You ladies enjoy yourselves. Is it okay with you if I leave for a few minutes, Bella?"

This was clearly against Edward's orders, but I did not want to deny him food. If he did not feel comfortable enough to eat in the restaurant with us, then I wouldn't tell him he couldn't go.

"That's fine, Marcus. Just don't be long." I'd promised Edward I wouldn't put myself into any situation that I would need him, and I hoped this wasn't one of them.

We were seated in the middle of the restaurant, and the hostess handed us our menus and read off the specialties as we got situated.

"Can I get you lovely ladies anything to drink?" she asked.

"I'll have a glass of the moscato," Angela answered.

"How about a glass of your merlot," Rosalie replied.

"I'll try the house blush," I said.

"Water, please," Alice whispered.

My head snapped over to her immediately. I saw Angela do the same, but Rosalie kept her nose buried in her menu.

"I'll bring those right out," the waitress said before she turned and walked toward the bar.

"Alice," I spoke slowly. "Is there something you want to tell us?"

She looked up and smiled at Rosalie. "Maybe," she giggled.

"Are you?" Angela breathed, nearly bouncing out of her chair in excitement.

"Yes!" Alice shrieked. "I'm pregnant!" The entire restaurant turned toward our table at her outburst and started congratulating her.

"How far along are you?" Angela asked when the talking subsided.

"Eight weeks. I've been dying to tell all of you since I found out, but Rosalie had me keep it quiet. I just couldn't do it any longer. I'm having another baby, and I'm so happy!"

"Was Jasper just as happy?" Angela asked.

Alice's head nodded with fervor. "Oh, yes. We've been trying for a couple of months now. He loves Brandon and wanted another baby so badly. You know how he's been since he came home from Iraq. He's so full of love. I think it's bursting out of him, and he needed to direct it towards something new."

Rosalie and Angela both sighed and fell back into their chairs.

Alice smiled and turned her head to me before her face fell. "Bella? You're crying. Are you not happy for me?"

My fingers immediately went to my cheeks, and I felt the water there. I wiped it away as best I could, and tried to put on the biggest smile I could muster.

"I'm happy Alice. You have no idea how happy I am for you. Come here." I opened my arms and stood so I could give her the strongest hug I had in me. "Congratulations, sweetie," I whispered in her ear.

"You'll be there with me again?" she whispered back.

I choked back the sob that wanted to come out and nodded my head as more tears started to leak out. "I'll be there," I said. "Right next to you."

By the end of our meal, my strength was dwindling. I hadn't thought about how hard this was going to be, retelling stories of our childhood and thinking about the future and now the baby that I'd never fall in love with. It was all too much. When we walked outside, Marcus was waiting to take us to the downtown district to some clothing boutiques, and I hoped to find a dressing room to hide away in for a while to pull myself together.

We got situated again in our seats, and I leaned against the back, needing it to hold me up until we got there. That's when my phone rang. I'd never reprogrammed any songs into my phone since I'd gotten a new one, but I figured it was Edward calling.

Without looking at the screen, I answered.

"Hey," I said.

"Hello," a male voice replied.

"Edward?" I questioned. It didn't sound like him, but I wasn't sure.

"Nope. Not Edward."

I felt my blood run cold. "Who is this?" I whispered. Marcus looked over at me for a second before refocusing his sights back on the road in front of us. It had gotten very dark outside with the rain even though it was only mid-afternoon.

"The man from your nightmares."

My heart started to race. _James._ "Why are you calling me?" I whimpered quietly, hoping they wouldn't hear me in the back.

"You were about to cross that line we warned you about, Bella, and Jake and I just can't allow that to happen." I heard him tsk into the phone as if he was disappointed in me. Laughter in the backseat alerted me that the girls were talking and not paying attention to my conversation.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied. How did he know? Did he get his hands on my letter to Edward?

"Yes, you do. One week from today you were planning on telling daddy dearest all about me and my friend Jake. It's too bad you had to go and involve Chief Swan." I heard him grunt into the phone, and it wasn't until I heard a groan in the background that I put his words and the noises together.

I felt everything inside of me stop working. My blood stopped pumping. My breath stopped cycling. My brain stopped functioning. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, I'm just standing here in your bookstore, looking at your dad tied up and gagged on the floor with a gun pointed at his head. He doesn't seem to enjoy being kicked in the gut."

I gasped and grabbed my stomach, about to vomit.

"Bella?" Rosalie said, grabbing for my upper arm. "What's wrong?"

"Tell her what's going on, and I'll kill your father right now," James hissed in my ear. My breathing picked up.

"I feel like I'm going to be sick," I told her quickly. "Damn rancid chicken in my pasta."

She leaned forward and felt my forehead. "You're sweating Bella. Do we need to pull over so you can throw up?" Everyone's faces were concerned as they looked up at me.

I nodded quickly, already feeling it come back up my throat. Marcus pulled over at a trash can on the side of the road, and I jumped out with the phone still to my ear while I expelled the contents of my stomach.

"Feel better?" James and Rosalie asked at the same time.

"No," I almost cried. I couldn't peel my hand away from my mouth. My dream had come true. James had my father at gunpoint. He was going to kill him if I didn't do something.

"I need to go back to Forks," I said to Rosalie shakily.

She nodded and helped me back into the front seat next to Marcus. I got a glance of myself in the side mirror as I sat down. My face was ashen. All of the blood had drained from it, and I looked... dead. This was it. I had to save my father.

"I need to go home," I whimpered to Marcus who was staring right at me, expressing no emotion.

"See you when you get back," James said before he hung up. I dropped my phone to the floorboard and leaned my head against the window welcoming the coolness of the glass.

I wouldn't get to say goodbye to Edward or show him how much I loved him. I'd been too busy writing the letter during the day to just be with him. This wasn't supposed to happen this way. All I could do now was pathetically offer myself up in return for my father's life and hope they would take it. My life was what they seemed to want. That's why they had called. _Please take it._

The world passed by outside the car as we drove home. It all went so fast. Tree after tree zoomed by like moments in my life. I couldn't hold onto them even if I tried. My childhood. My adolescence. My mother. My father. Jake. Edward. All had been or were being taken from me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

When Alice was dropped off, the final person in the car besides Marcus and me, I turned to him. "I need you to leave me at the bookstore. When you drop me off, do not tell Edward where I am. He cannot know," I begged.

He nodded, complying with my plea with no question, and pulled out of her driveway. I was only minutes away from my death, not eight days. Mere seconds. My eyes shut as I tried to hold off the tears.

I wasn't ready for this. Did I say the right things in the letter? Would he know this was for him, too, not just my father? I didn't know. How had this all gone so wrong?

"What did you expect?" Marcus asked all of a sudden breaking the heavy silence.

I turned to him, not understanding what he meant. "What?" I asked quietly.

"Did you _really_ think we would let you go to your father, Bella?"

* * *

**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

OH FUUUUCK. I'll be in hiding in my bunker until I update again. Now go review and tell me what you think!

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	22. Chapter 22 Sad Life

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

**NOTICE: This chapter got way out of control size-wise and content-wise, so it's been broken up into two smaller chapters. That means that the scary stuff is going to be spread out over the next two weeks.  
**

Rated M: **A N G S T, language, V I O L E N C E,** lemons

* * *

**Three new songs were added this chapter****! Check them out: ****http:/www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139

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**

**CHAPTER 22**

**Sad Life  
**

"Did you _really_ think we would let you go to your father, Bella?" Marcus said. "I bet you didn't count on me hearing you calling your father and telling him you needed to talk to him next Friday. There was no way we could allow that to happen, now could we? We all know what you were going to tell him."

The roar in my ears reached an almost deafening decibel, and my body started to tremble. Marcus was part of this?

"You're working with James and Jake?" I choked, pushing my body against the passenger door to get as far away from him as I could.

"Working with _them_? More like they're working with _me_. I'm the original, sweetie."

James had been torturing Edward since he found out about him and Tanya months ago. The original, though? Marcus had started this months ago?

"Why are you doing this?"

His hands wrung the leather steering wheel with a force that turned his knuckles white. "What he had me doing starts to weigh on a man's conscience after a while," he growled through his teeth.

"What does that mean?" I asked, shocked by his answer.

His tension did not let up. "He paid me extra money to drive his disgusting ass to her house every night so they could fuck. He paid me to wait outside until he was done with her. He paid me to drive them around while they fucked in the backseat of the very sedan I drove _you_ around in while you were in Los Angeles. He has no honor. And, he made me an accomplice by paying me to keep my mouth shut and never tell her boyfriend."

"You didn't keep your mouth shut, though, did you?"

He smirked. "No, I didn't. James came over to Tanya's a little early one night, and spotted me waiting outside. He asked who I was and what I was doing there, and...oops...it all just spilled out."

"Was that the night he stormed the house and attacked Edward?"

"Oh, no," he laughed. "That was a good two weeks after the first night I met him. I always called him as soon as Edward went inside the house so he'd know he could come over. That's how James got the pictures of them in bed together." He turned his grin to me. "And, that's how he got the pictures of you."

I cowered away from him in disgust knowing exactly what that wicked grin of his meant.

"Your body is gorgeous, Bella," he purred, stretching his arm across the seat so that he could run his finger down the side of my face. I shivered at his touch and hit his hand away with the back of my own.

"It was too easy, really, getting James back there. Once Edward showed me that there was a camera in the tree, I told Jake that we'd stage a fake party crashing with him at the camera, and once the security detail was distracted, James could slip past them in the woods and get situated in the prime spot."

"How long have you been tipping them off about us?"

"Ever since you came to Los Angeles. I mean, it was perfect. James was so excited to play this little game again. It had been so long since Edward had taken a woman on a date. Then the way he reacted after I snuck all of those photographers back there with the limo to catch you coming out together. Oh, Bella. We never guessed he was in love with you until that moment. That made it all the better."

"All along?" I asked him. "All of our problems were because of you?"

He smirked, and that was all I needed to see.

"Just get me to my father!" I snapped, not willing to take any more of his shit. Charlie was there with James and probably scared out of his mind. He had no idea why this was happening to him. If James' phone call was any indication of what shape he was probably in, I was going to lose it when I got there. I would probably barely be able to stomach it if he was severely beaten because of me.

"So eager for eternal damnation," he sighed.

As soon as we pulled up in the back of the bookstore, I jumped out and ran to the door in the pouring rain. The clouds were so heavy and dark with the late Fall evening hours starting to set in that when I found the door locked, I was nearly fumbling blindly in my purse for my keys. My hands were shaking so badly with the fear of what I would find inside. I didn't want to think about it. I just needed to get in there and convince James to kill me instead of my dad. I had failed in my dream, but I couldn't fail this time. There was no way I could.

The key turned in the lock, and with a twist of the door knob, I threw it open and ran down the short hallway into the store. It was eerily quiet as I spun around in the middle of the room smelling the old paper and leather, everything softly lit by my chandelier above. The shelves were dusty after almost two weeks of being untouched my human hands. The books felt abandoned and lonely. The only life in the place was..._me_.

As if on cue to startle me out of my realization, a piercing screech reverberated in my ears. Memories of that morning when Jake broke into the house tightened my chest, and I quickly ran to the keypad by the front door to punch in the code to turn off the delayed alarm. Just as the noise quietened, I heard the floorboards creaking behind me down the hall. Two heavy feet, taking their time.

"Where's my father?" I whispered, not daring to turn around to see which man this was going to be. He strolled up and stopped inches from my back. I could feel his breath stirring my hair, traveling through to my neck. The hair on my neck stood on end.

The man's arm came up at my side. In fear of what he was going to do, I closed my eyes. Neither the arm or hand touched me, but I did hear the flick of a light switch and I knew that he'd turned off the chandelier above. Instinctively, my breathing picked up.

"Where's my father?" I asked again.

He tutted, and I recognized his voice immediately. "I'm sure he's at the police station completely unaware of what's about to happen to you," Marcus said. "When we were trying to find a way to lure you away from your keepers, I recalled your dream from the other day and how upset you were with the idea of something bad happening to him."

Two emotions washed over me, both contradicting the other in their own way.

Relief was the first. My father was safe. He would not die at the hands of my enemy. I would not have his blood on my hands as I would have been solely responsible for his death because I had involved him in this sick and twisted game of theirs.

The second emotion was terror. I was all alone with a man that was deranged with anger. He had been wronged in the past and had never moved on. I could only hope his plans for me were quick because I'd suffered enough over the past several years. Fear that he had other ideas kept me from asking, though.

I turned around slowly and met his black eyes. "At least give me some more answers," I said.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, turning and walking around the shelves, all the while keeping his gaze locked on me.

"You had your fun. Why did you think it was necessary to continue torturing him for what he did wrong? He learned from his mistakes."

"Where was the fun when he stopped going out with women?"

I knew exactly what came next for Edward. "Why death threats?"

Marcus smirked, and then I heard more footsteps in the hallway. I took an involuntary step backwards so I was pressed against the wall at the front of the store.

"What is the next logical step when your plans are being ruined by the very person whose life it is you're trying to make miserable?" James asked, as he came into the dim light coming in through the windows.

"Logical!" I laughed tensely. "There's nothing logical about what you're doing."

Both of their stares hardened as they looked at me like I'd just slapped them.

"The money, Bella," James sneered. "Threaten someone's life, and they will do anything. Edward was willing to pay millions to keep those pictures a secret and keep his heart beating. Eight million to be exact."

My mind drifted to a memory of us sitting in his dining room in Los Angeles. "Eight million? He told me five."

He smiled and looked over at Marcus. "It was five until last week. Edward is very protective of you. When we contacted him asking for more, he nearly threw the three million at us to keep your pictures under lock and key. A full million for each of us."

My stomach rolled. Three million for three people. Marcus and James stood in front of me, but Jake still wasn't here. I was sure it was only a matter of time, though.

"It all revolves around the money?" I asked.

Marcus walked around the bookshelf and sat on the couch lazily, kicking his feet up on the table. James' stance was very casual, too. I was the only one whose body was stiff and defensively rigid.

"If it was just the money we'd clean you out, too, Bella," Marcus said.

"So, you _did _know I had money. Why did you call me a gold digger in LA?" I grilled him. I'd always wondered, and now, just a matter of time before I died at his hands, I'd find out why.

"I initially thought you were only after Edward's money. That's what most women are after that sleep with celebrities. But, here's this gigantic house of yours, and you were what, 25 years old? How were you able to afford such luxury with such a menial job? When we went back to LA, I started doing research on you. My initial thought was you had to have been married to someone rich and then divorced them, cleaning them out."

I was shocked by this.

"Looking through the local newspapers online," he continued, "I came across an announcement from about six months before. It said _Charles Swan, of Forks, Wash., is pleased to announce the engagement of his daughter Isabella Marie Swan, also the daughter of the late Renee Swan, to Jacob William Black, son of William Black and the late Kate Black of La Push, Wash."_

Standing from the couch, he walked around the shelf in front of him and leaned on it to look at me pensively.

"The wedding was supposed to be the following weekend of the announcement, Bella. There was no wedding announcement ever printed, and as far as I knew from what Edward said, you still went by Swan. Something that was obvious was that you didn't wear a ring. I just had to track down this Jacob Black, former fiance of yours, to find out what was up. My guess was that something bad had happened between you two. Broken engagements are rarely pretty."

He paused and then smiled. His voice was less serious and interrogating when he began to speak again. There was a hint of mockery in his tone.

"Why wasn't there a wedding, Bella?"

I opened my mouth to defend myself when I heard two more feet walking heavily down the hallway. I felt the acid churn in my stomach as Jake walked into the muted light from outside that was only minutes from completely disappearing with the setting sun behind the clouds. As he got closer, I felt my body shrink into itself.

He had always been twice my size, and at one point it had felt comforting to have a man as big as him to protect me, but now I knew how much he could hurt me with that body of his. Jake didn't stop walking until he stood right in front of me, towering a full foot above my head.

"Are you going to answer him?" Jake sneered.

My mouth popped open in shock. He was making it out like it was my fault when it was the other way around. "You cheated on me," I whispered weakly.

It happened too quickly for me to react, though any sort of motion wouldn't have saved me any pain. His right hand flicked up to his left side, and he swung it in front of him. The back of his palm slammed into my cheekbone, and I was on the ground the next instant.

"Jesus Christ!" I screamed, clutching onto my face. The whole right side of my cheek was on fire, the pain radiating around my eye socket.

"Shhhh, Bella," he hushed me, bending down and running his giant hand that had just struck me down the side of my face. "You can't be so loud. Do you have your iPod with you, darling? Why don't you get up and play some music of your choice through the speakers. We can't have people outside hearing your screams."

_Screams?_

"It's gonna be a long night for you."

That sentence only confirmed my fears. My death would not be quick as I had hoped, but I would endure it and all the pain that was coming for _him_.

When I didn't get up, Jake wrenched my arm and pulled me up roughly. "Ouch," I whimpered, feeling the indention of his fingers all the way down to the bone.

"Turn on some fucking music!" he growled in my ear. I cringed away from him, and quickly picked up my purse that I'd dropped on the ground. I found the silver iPod in the bottom and walked quickly over to my iPod dock behind the counter. I plugged it in and scrolled through the playlists.

Warm, heavy breath on the back of my neck made me jump and push on the playlist entitled _Sad _accidentally. "Everybody Hurts" by REM started playing loudly throughout the entire bookstore.

"_Sad?_" Jake asked. "That one three-letter word describes our lives so perfectly, doesn't it, sweetie? Well, at least my life. Yours is just perfect."

"What are you talking about?" I asked steely, turning to him. "My life has been just as sad as yours." He brought his finger up and pressed it on my upper cheek where he hit me. I flinched away from his touch even though he wasn't pushing hard.

Staring into his eyes, I said, "My life may have been sadder than yours, actually. I was in the car, Jake. I watched them die." His fingertip pressed harder into my swollen face, and I cried out in pain.

He sighed. "You couldn't stay unhappy, could you? You had to get better."

I stepped around him so that I didn't feel so trapped behind the counter, but he followed. Marcus and James had moved and were blocking both exits now. I didn't have any plans to use either of them at any time, but it did make me feel more trapped if that was even possible.

I stopped walking and turned back to him. "We both got better, Jake."

His face twisted and then turned hard again. "No, _we_ didn't!" he yelled. "_You_ got better, Bella. _You_ moved on."

"Jake, you have no idea!" I yelled, throwing my hands up at my side, glaring up at him right in front of me. "Do you really believe that I was cured from my pain? After what you did to me at the beach and after what you said, I had a fucking flashback to the night of the accident like I used to have! Edward helped-"

"Don't mention his name in my presence!" Jake interrupted.

"Well, that's just too damn bad! I needed someone that night, and it was _Edward_ who was there for me and held me and talked to me and made sure I was safe!"

I saw his face contort from anger into such agony at my words. "Why weren't you there when I needed you?" he nearly cried.

My breath caught in my throat. The man in front of me was not the enraged Jake that I'd become used to. I was looking at the troubled 17 year old Jake in my bedroom, the boy that felt lost and hollow and helpless.

"I was always there, Jake," I croaked. "I would have been forever. But, you...you left me."

I felt his hand on my face again, and I didn't pull back. He was gently wiping the tears off that I didn't even know I was crying. His eyes softened as he looked into mine, trailing the back of his fingers down my neck as he wiped off the tears that had trailed down. The anger was completely gone.

"No," he whispered with a shake of his head. "You left me."

And, then his hand was wrapped tightly around my throat. With strength that I'd never experienced being used on my body, he picked me up by my neck and slammed my back into the wall.

"Jake," I choked, unable to breathe, my feet kicking above the ground. My fingers clawed frantically at his hand trying to release them to no avail. His grasp was so tight that I couldn't squeeze under his hand at all for any kind of relief.

All the oxygen in my lungs was running out, and I was starting to lose focus. "Please," I tried to say but only mouthed. _I don't want to die this way._ With that last plea, my body landed on the floor with a loud thud, and I started gasping for the air that I knew I could breathe now. No matter how hard I sucked in loudly and coughed, my lungs didn't feel like they were getting enough.

Afraid to stand up, I laid on the ground as I let my body jerk with the sobs that were coming out of me with each ragged breath.

"Two women have left me behind in this world!" he yelled. "My mother and you!"

Just as I was able to take in a giant gulp of air, I felt his foot connect with my stomach, and I was catapulted into the wall. The ache of this newest blow was multiplied by my deep breaths I was needing to take with my diaphragm.

"Jessica was there for me when you weren't. She let me fuck her the way I needed to fuck a woman! She let me get my anger for you and my mother out of my system so I could come home and treat you the way you deserved and make love to you and touch you with respect. I did it for you, Bella, and then you fucking left me!"

There were no words for this even if I could speak them. My mind was too foggy with everything that was coming into light this evening, and it just didn't make sense how he could feel that he was doing me some sort of service by cheating on me.

"Seeing you so distraught that night you found Jessica and I in bed together, I felt like I'd finally accomplished something. Euphoric would be a great way to describe my mood. I'd never thought of it before then. When you walked in on us, you crumpled back in on yourself because I had taken your happiness away. You and I were even again. Knowing how sad you were made me feel better about myself because I wasn't the only weak one anymore!"

This was sickening. He crouched down in front of my crumpled body on the floor, and tilted his head to look into my eyes.

"You were too happy at the bar," he sighed, and I knew exactly which night he was talking about. I was excited after such an amazing day. I'd met Edward Cullen that day. "I decided I needed to put you back in your place. By the look on your face it was working until _he_ came to the rescue."

His fists tightened as he remembered.

"This all would have been fine if it wasn't for him."

In the next instant, I was being dragged across the hardwood flooring by my hair again. I could see Marcus' feet and James', too, and I knew I was in the middle of them now.

"He seems to be the root of all our problems, doesn't he?" James said.

"Just think. If you'd have never met him, you wouldn't be here..." Marcus added almost wistfully.

They were trying to anger me and get me to blame Edward for this, but I never would. I had lived so I could die in the place of another, and that was him.

I swallowed thickly, and used all of my strength to pick myself up off the ground so that I could stand and defend myself from their physical and emotional attacks. The last thing I wanted them to see me as was weak. If there was one thing I'd learned over the years was that I was strong when I needed to be. There were moments that I felt weak, but they were few and far between anymore, and this wasn't going to one of those times.

The pain I was experiencing over my entire body was excruciating, but I was able to stand up mostly straight without any assistance.

"Edward ruined my life," James said. I hardened my face and stared him directly in the eye as a challenge.

"Tanya ruined your life," I spat. "She's the one that broke her commitment to you, so fuck you."

James walked up to me, lifted his hand and struck me across the face in the exact same spot that Jake had. Using all of the resolve I'd just found, I stayed on my feet and fought back the scream of pain of having the tender area on my cheek hit again forcefully. My eye felt like it was almost swollen shut, and I could taste blood in my mouth.

"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas started playing then.

"I loved her," he seethed through his teeth.

"She didn't love you or she never would have cheated on you," I spat back.

"Edward took my girlfriend away from me."

"She chose to take herself away from you and out of your relationship, so stop blaming him for everything."

The rage in his face was growing with each of my counter strikes against his reasons.

"Let's see how he feels when I take his girlfriend away from him." He turned around and started to stalk off toward the front door.

"I'm taking myself away from him," I declared.

He stopped walking and spun around to face me again.

"What do you mean by that, Bella?" he asked, quirking his eyebrow.

"My life for his," I answered. "I was going to go to my father, tell him everything and offer myself up to you. That was my plan."

Marcus started laughing. "I guess we thwarted your magnificent plan, didn't we? Here you come running to save your father, and he's not even here."

"You're still going to kill me, though," I said shakily.

"That we are," James replied.

"You were going to cross our clearly drawn line," Jake tacked on. "You deserve your punishment."

The warm body of Marcus pressed up against my back, and I tensed.

"You know this is all over for you, right?" I said to them. "My plan still works. Edward will know it was you. He'll tell my father anyways, and the entire police force of Washington will be out looking for you."

"It's not over if they don't catch us," Jake shrugged. "We'll run to Canada, change our appearances and names. It will be worth it to know we've all gotten our revenge. You will be dead for wanting to turn us in and Edward will suffer for the rest of his life knowing that he was responsible for your death."

"And, they won't even know I was involved," Marcus whispered into my ear. I shuddered when I felt his lips brush the shell of my ear. "Edward will never know the man responsible for the love of his life's death is on his payroll and drives him around every day. Maybe I'll find a way to rig the vehicle someday and he'll meet his own death."

I inhaled sharply. Edward _wouldn't_ know about Marcus' involvement. The police would only be searching for James and Jake. Marcus could still kill Edward.

"You're not running with us?" Jake barked all of a sudden. My head jerked up to see how James and Jake had both moved closer to us.

"I never did plan to run," Marcus smiled. "There was a reason I kept my involvement secret this entire time. This benefits the both of you more than you may realize. Think of how much more money I can get out of him."

"We're sacrificing everything, and you get to lead a normal life?" James snapped. "I see how it is. Jake and I do all of your dirty work and you get off free and clear."

I couldn't see Marcus behind me, but I could hear the smirk in his voice. "Isn't that always how it works, even in society?" he asked. "I'm the boss in this operation. I pay you to do everything while I sit back and instruct."

James threw his hands up in the air and turned around in anger while Jake stood there like a stone statue, his eyes never leaving the man over my left shoulder. Marcus grabbed my hair in his hands and yanked my head to the side so that my neck was exposed to him.

"So beautiful," he breathed, the air passing out of his lips burning my skin. "Besides the money and the fun, I have wanted you from the moment I saw you. Edward always gets to fuck women as beautiful as you. And, you were offering yourself up to him like a dog in heat as soon as you met. Why don't you offer yourself up to me now, Bella?"

His mouth and tongue came down on my neck, and I cried out in disgust. I had no more time to react, as my eyes were closed, but with one loud blast in front of me, Marcus' lips were gone from my neck, his chest was removed from my back and his erection disappeared from my ass.

"We're not going down without you," I heard Jacob whisper.

My eyes flew open to see Jake standing in front of me holding a gun in his hands pointed directly over my shoulder where Marcus once stood.

_The gun. The black gun from my dreams._

The terrifying silence in the room following the deafening blast only highlighted that the song switched to "I Will Remember You" by Sarah McLachlan.

I screamed and collapsed to my knees on the floor in front of me. I refused to look behind me. There was no way I could look because I knew what Jake had just done without even having to see it.

Marcus was dead. The one person that would be able to kill Edward without his knowledge of their resentment was gone. Jake had killed him. My former fiance and friend had murdered another human being.

"Give me the gun!" James yelled, ripping it out of his hand. "What if someone heard that? That was saved for her, and then we were gonna run!"

My stomach was already convulsing, so I took deep breaths trying to calm my nerves. I had to keep it together to make my plea. Things were out of control already, so now was my chance to end this torture.

"Do it now," I cried, begging them from my position of kneeling. "The gun is in your hands. End this right now. I can't keep doing this any longer. I can't take any more pain. Just end it for me, please."

James' face grew serious again as he looked down at me on the floor. This was the same angry glare he'd given me the first time I ever saw him. All things changed that night when he realized Edward was in love with me. Our lives would never be the same from that moment on.

That night was the first night I dreamed of James. I'd had many dreams involving him and the very gun that he held in his hand. I was tired of dreaming of the end of my life. I was tired of waking up right as I heard the trigger being pulled. It was a long drawn out death this way, and this here in the store had gone on long enough. _Not instant._ I wanted it to end now and meet my fate. Heaven or Hell. Either one. I'd never wanted death so much in my life.

Edward would know why once he'd read my letter. He would hopefully understand and forgive me and feel the love that I had put into this final act of mine. This had not happened as I'd planned, but it was what I had to accept. My eight final days with Edward had been taken away from me, but I couldn't do anything to change that. Now was the time to end all of this.

"Please do it now," I whispered, bowing my head in lonely defeat. The silence seemed to stretch on forever, and then I heard the bones in James' shoulder pop as he lifted the gun. My entire body tensed – my eyes clenched to hold in the tears, my jaw tightened to hold in the scream, my hands fisted to hold onto something for comfort. In one last act of life, I took a deep breath and waited for the sound.

_Edward...I love you._

"Bella!"

That's when I knew I had to be having a nightmare. I couldn't be hearing _his_ voice. It was so clear, though; it wasn't distant like I always recalled when he was trying to snap me out of a dream. He was _here_, and I was very much awake.

All of our heads shot to the front door when we heard the door rattle, and that's where I saw Edward peering in through the glass with his hands cupped around his eyes. "Oh God, baby! No!" he yelled.

Without any warning, I was being dragged along the floor toward the back entrance by both James and Jake. "Don't!" I screamed at Edward in warning. He couldn't come in here. James had a gun. He would kill him if he tried to save me.

I didn't resist them. The farther away from the front of the store, the farther away we were from Edward, and the safer he was.

A shattering sound alerted me that the glass in the front door had been broken, and we stopped moving abruptly, my head falling to the floor. It was so dark in the hallway where we were away from the windows that I couldn't see what was going on, but I could feel and hear Jake run toward him by the way the floorboards moved under me.

"Don't!" I shrieked again, and then I heard three bodies hit the floor hard with the distinct sound of someone's bones breaking. James was with me still, so Edward had somebody with him. It had to be Emmett with him. What if Emmett was killed, too? Rosalie would be left alone because of me. _All my fault._

"It's supposed to be me!" I screamed, tears streaming down my face.

James pulled me up onto my feet and dragged me back into the main part of store. Now that we were closer, I could make out the silhouettes of the bodies of the three men. Someone was motionless, flat on their stomach, and two larger men were throwing punches and rolling around. Out of Edward, Emmett and Jake, Edward was the smallest of all of them.

Everything around me started spinning as I stood there with James holding my arms behind my back while I stared down at the man – the dark mass – that laid on the floor not moving at all next to the other two men as they continued fighting. It was his bones that broke.

_I'd killed Edward._

Chaos roared in my ears. Nothing made sense anymore as my reason for both living and dying had been taken away from this world. In all of my years of heartache and devastation, nothing compared to this feeling. I was empty and alone, and nothing would ever change that.

I'd witnessed with my own two young eyes so much death, one of them directly being my fault...one of them being the love of my life.

"Do it," I begged, not even trying to hold back my sobs and hiccups for air anymore. My throat was so strained, that it was almost the most painful of all of my injuries I'd sustained tonight. "Kill me, James. I don't want to live anymore. Put the gun to my head and pull the trigger. If you don't do it, I will."

It was only a few seconds that I had to wait for his response, but I finally felt the warm metal tip press into my temple. And I knew that my sad life was finally all over.

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

Take a deep breath, and then go leave me a review telling me how upset you are or what you think is going to happen or even how much you hate me for doing this to our beloved Bella and Edward. No matter what it is you've got to say, I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you next Monday with the second half.

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**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	23. Chapter 23 Darkness

**AUTHORS NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Check this shit out: bfffersoffanfic[dot]com/for-you-anything-fic-rec -- My story is being rec'd on a fanfic blog! That's great! Thanks RCD! I wish I knew you in real life so that I could give you a big sloppy kiss.

**I NOW HAVE A BANNER!** You can go check it out in my profile at the top of the picture links. I should have done this a long time ago, considering I'm a graphic designer! :)

Rated M: **A N G S T, language, V I O L E N C E,** lemons

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**One new song added this chapter****! Check it out: ****http://www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

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**CHAPTER 23**

**Darkness**

"I'm going to get headed out," Jane said as I changed my shirt. "I can't get out of this town fast enough."

I grumbled. Not one time since she'd been in Forks had she said a single nice thing about it. She didn't even appreciate the view of the ocean when we were filming on the sea cliffs earlier in the week. Jane was too city for her own good.

"When will you be back next Sunday?"

I didn't even have to pull out my planner to check. I knew the exact time my flight left because I'd just ordered a plane ticket for Bella to take her with me to Los Angeles until I was done filming. Even if Jake was found and arrested, I could never leave her alone with James still out there.

"My flight leaves Port Angeles right before seven in the morning. I should be back in Los Angeles before noon."

"Come by the office when you're situated. We need to get your schedule for those following four weeks hammered out. Between Emmett, the two production studios and me, we've got you running all over the country. You're going to be the busiest you've been in a long time."

Only five more weeks until I was freed from this oppression. Everyone was going to assume that it was Bella that made me quit this life of mine, if life was what you could call it after everything that had happened. But she wasn't the reason I was going to quit. She was the reason that made taking the leap into the unknown worth it.

I had been in this business for ten years, and I could not count on one hand the number of accomplishments I was proud of, and that was something I had realized months before I found myself falling in love with a brown-eyed beauty that turned my world upside down in a matter of hours. Maybe I wouldn't have walked away now if we'd never met, but I would have eventually. One, two, ten years down the road, I'd have been doing something else. It's a mystery if I'd have been as happy as I was going to be because we _had_ met, but what would have been in my future would have had to have been a step up.

Now I knew that Bella would have objections to me quitting, and maybe that's why I had been putting it off so long. I knew that her main point would be that numerous actors were married, and she would be right. There were those that conducted semi-normal lives with non-actor spouses that they loved deeply. They were successful and happy. When they had time off from work, they would fly home and see them, or they uprooted their lives and moved to LA to be closer. Neither was an option for me, though.

Why should I continue doing something that made me wonder if at the end of my years I would look back and regret everything? Why should I be thousands of miles away from my better half for months on end if I had the choice to not be? Where was the logic in either?

In five weeks, I could finally be with Bella and love her. Acting would be in the past.

And, after all of these years, I would be happy.

"Dude," Emmett said, startling me. I turned to him after seeing that Jane had left sometime during my daydream. "You're gonna love me for what I'm about to tell you."

"There's a first time for everything," I joked, feeling a little lighter now.

"Ha ha," he mock-laughed. "Next scene is your last for the day before you head off to the hotel for the interview with Victoria. I wanted to personally thank you for busting your balls this week. You've been on your game."

"I didn't have a choice," I said, buttoning up the shirt I was putting on. "There were a few times that I felt stressed out, but I had to get past it so I wouldn't delay anymore than I already had."

"You should be glad to know that next week will be easy sailing in regards to filming. We've only six scenes left, and they're all on set. Hell, I have half a mind to say 'fuck it' and film them in LA, but production is on my ass to get as much done here since you've got some premieres for your next movie before we're done."

Emmett must have seen the longing in my face to have the next week free and clear of all obligations.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "I'm in the same place with Rosalie right now. The last thing I want to do is work next week and then leave, but I cannot piss off the execs."

"Yeah, you're right," I sighed. But, he did say it would be easier. Maybe we'd have more time to just sit and talk, though if she kept up her writing, I wouldn't want to interrupt her.

I'd been so concerned that my presence was stifling her career. Bella, unlike myself, had found her calling that brought her joy. Between takes I watched her as she wrote in her notebook on her lap. I thought I'd loved her before, but seeing her like this reminded me that the beautiful woman I was in love with was intelligent, creative and successful all on her own.

Her lips moved as she wrote. At times I saw her wipe tears from her face, and that's how I knew that maybe her story was different than all of her others. Most children's books, besides her first ones maybe, didn't bring people to tears. Maybe she was expanding into a different genre and that's why she wasn't ready for me to read it, yet.

She said I would get to see it some day, though, and I couldn't wait to be the first to read her beautiful words.

"Hey," Emmett whispered, walking up closer to me. "When are you going to ask her?"

I smiled knowing exactly what he meant. After we got back from Seattle, I told Emmett about my failed attempt at asking Bella to marry me while we were dancing at the restaurant. The next words out of my mouth were going to be the ones I'd wanted to say for so long, and the sommelier just _had_ to walk in.

"_It wasn't meant to be," _Emmett had said. _"Restaurants, especially romantic ones, are a nice place to propose, but get more creative and personal."_

"_And, your proposal was sooooo creative,"_ I'd snorted. _"In the shower, right? Post sex?"_

"_Our situation was different. I didn't exactly have the time to think out an elaborate plan. I knew what I wanted and went for it. Rosie loved it."_

"_And, Bella doesn't exactly need an elaborate plan. I'm sure she'd prefer simple to something orchestrated and choreographed."_

"_Well, make it personal then. Where did you guys meet? I don't think you've ever told me."_

That was all I needed to hear to know how I would propose to my soul mate.

After wrapping up after the final scene for the day, I went out to Bella's Volvo in the parking lot. Marcus had taken the girls to Port Angeles for a "female bonding day" and that left me with her car. Calling me nervous would have been an understatement, but she promised that she wouldn't put herself in a situation where she would need my help. And I trusted her to keep that promise.

I'd called her I don't know how many times this morning, once within minutes of leaving my side, and after the last time, I could sense a bit of annoyance so I backed it off. Marcus said he would watch after her, and I trusted him, too.

Glancing at the time on my phone, I noted that it had been hours since I'd spoken to her. I went to my favorites on my contacts list and was about to press on her name when my phone rang. Without looking at the name I answered.

"Are you on your way?" a female voice asked.

"Victoria?" I'd expected it to be Bella.

"Well, yeah. They're all set up here in the suite. We're waiting on you, so get your butt moving. The quicker we start, the quicker this is over for the both of us. Riley is in town, and I'd like to spend a little time with him if ya know what I'm sayin'."

I put the car in reverse and pulled out while smiling. "No," I said innocently. "I have no idea what you mean. If you want to spend some time with him, have him _come_ to the interview."

She huffed. "You've got ten minutes, or I'm ripping your balls off as soon as you walk through the door."

"I'll be there in nine."

As I drove through town as quickly as I could without it being _too_ illegal, I made sure to look around at my surroundings. How could I have disliked Forks so much when I first came here months ago? Nothing about this town wasn't idyllic. The heavily tree-lined streets... laughing families running through the rain to their cars... the quiet.

I couldn't fault Jane too much for disliking it because I didn't see or feel the comfort in this place until I met Bella. As I thought that, I drove by her bookstore and remembered that day like it was yesterday. It was such a bright, pleasant day – much different than today as the dark clouds overhead dropped rain on the windshield.

The chandelier inside lit the space warmly, and I smiled.

_Tonight._

She would be home before dinner, and I wanted to treat her to a nice meal before I took her to the bookstore – the place we met, the place she loved so much, the place where my life changed forever and the place where I would ask for her hand in marriage.

I wanted to make it somewhere that brought a smile to her face every day she went to work.

It would be our memory forever.

After a couple hours of questions, the interview was over, and Victoria was out the door before I was able to say goodbye to her for the weekend.

Taking one step out of the entrance of the hotel, I was bombarded with photographers.

"Why did Victoria run out of the hotel covering her face a few minutes ago?" one of them asked.

"Were you just having an affair with your costar, Edward?" another questioned bluntly. They all knew exactly why we were upstairs, but none of them would acknowledge that because they wanted a reaction from me.

Trying to keep my head down and tucked inside my hoodie, I dodged the photographers as well as I could with them only inches away shoving their camera lenses in my face. I was attuned to knowing who was around me now, and I could tell that James was not one of them. He wouldn't have passed up a chance to bring up Tanya at a time like this.

Just as I reached the car, a hand grabbed my upper arm to try to stop me. "Hey! Back off!" I growled, spinning around to confront whoever was getting too close.

"It's Seth," he calmed. "I have something I think you should know." He acted very nervous; almost scared. If it was anybody else, I'd tell them to fuck off, but this was Seth, and Bella was right about him being different no matter how much I wanted to deny it.

"What?" I asked.

"We shouldn't discuss this in front of everybody." He looked around at those that surrounded the two of us, as did I.

"Get in," I said noticing how everyone was very interested in what we were talking about. He ran around to the passenger seat and jumped in. I started the car and slowly pulled out of the parking lot making sure I didn't run over one of them, though I wanted to.

"What is it?"

"Well, I heard a conversation I wasn't supposed to hear, and..." Looking over at him, he was wringing his hands and looking down at his lap.

"What, Seth? Just spit it out," I said, exasperated.

He took a deep breath, and I started to get worried. What was so hard for him to say? "It...it involves Bella, Edward."

I swallowed thickly. _Bella._

"I heard that blonde photographer that she was afraid of, James, talking to someone on the phone outside the set. I didn't like what he was saying."

Even though my mind was racing with the possibilities of what he had heard, my brain could barely function enough to speak. "What was he saying?" I whispered.

"I didn't understand all of it – not really any of it – but James was saying something about Bella and her father."

My heart was trying to beat itself out of my chest as I listened. "When was this?" I croaked.

"It was earlier today when you were still working. Around lunch. I was going to tell you when you left, but you were on your cell when you went through the gate and didn't pay any attention to me trying to stop you."

"Did he say the name of the person he was talking to? Was it a Jake or Jacob?"

A crease formed between Seth's eyes. "No, that name isn't familiar. I think he said Michael."

_Michael?! _There was somebody else now?

"No!" he exclaimed, slapping his thighs with his palms. "Marcus not Michael. He definitely said, 'When they're almost done eating, Marcus, call me and we'll get prepared back here.'"

All of the blood drained from my face, and I about threw up. It couldn't be. Not Marcus. Not my driver that I trusted with my own life every day. Not the man that I was trusting Bella's life with right now. No.

"James mentioned Bella's father, and that 'this would work because she would try to save him just like in the nightmare she had in the car.'"

And, that is when my entire life came to a screeching halt. _In the car._ Bella had a nightmare in the car when we were driving back from Seattle; when _Marcus_ was driving us back from Seattle.

"Do you know what he was talking about?" Seth asked, turning in his seat.

I took a shuddering breath and nodded, knowing exactly what he was talking about. James, Jake and Marcus were setting up a trap to lure Bella somewhere, and I didn't know why. My entire body began to shake in fear.

"You're kind of freaking me out, Edward."

There was a terrifying truth, but I was afraid to speak the words out loud. My Bella. My beautiful Bella. This couldn't be happening. Everything was fine ten minutes ago. My future had been decided. Why was this happening now?

"Edward? What did I overhear?"

With my hands still on the wheel, headed out of town down the same street I just drove down before the interview, I closed my eyes briefly and answered him. "They're going to try to kill her."

When Seth didn't say anything, I looked over at him and saw his mouth hanging open and eyes wide. A second later he was in action.

He yanked out his cell phone and dialed three numbers on the keypad which I knew were 911. I was numb as I listened to the dial tone. _What have I done by bringing her into this?_

"Yes, I want to report an attack on a woman. We don't know where she is, we just know that someone is after her. I overheard a man talking about doing this on the phone with another man, and now we're out looking for her." He paused, and I saw him turn to me out of the corner of my eye. "Where are we headed?"

"Her house," I choked. The dream had them in the house, in Bella's library. I'd gone through this once before when Jake broke in – terrified of whether she was dead or alive and unsure of where she was. But, the library was where I'd found her then. She had to be there.

The town and buildings passed by outside in a blur, street lamps and store lights white and golden streaks in the rain falling on my windows.

"Her name is Bella Swan. Her boyfriend Edward Cullen said these men were going to kill her. You need to hurry."

_Light. Light. Light. Darkness. Light. Light. Light._

Something deep in my hazy subconscious triggered a memory, and I slammed my foot on the brake. The car fish-tailed on the wet road and came to a violent stop at the end of the block at a weird angle, halfway into the intersection. My hands gripped the steering wheel as I stared out the front of the windshield trying to figure out why I'd stopped, and then it hit me. _Darkness._

Seth had flown forward out of his seat and had used his hands to catch his body on the dashboard. "What the hell!" he yelled, leaning forward to pick up the phone off the floormat.

"The chandelier," I whispered, breathing heavily.

"Are you still there?" he asked into the phone. "Good. No, we weren't in an accident. Edward slammed on the brakes for some reason."

"The chandelier was on earlier," I said.

"He's saying something about a chandelier," he told the dispatcher. "I don't know, ma'am. What's going on, Edward? What are you talking about?"

"She never turns it off," I answered shakily, turning my head toward him. "Bella isn't at home... They've got her in the bookstore."

I'd only had enough time to throw the door open and put both shoes on the slick pavement when I heard a piercing explosive sound echo down the block between the buildings. I couldn't move as I stood there with the door still open. My feet were rooted in place as I stared toward the source of the sound – the middle of the block.

Seth was outside the car now, looking in the same direction as I was. "Was that a gun shot?!"

A gun shot. A gun. _Oh, my God._ "Bella!" I yelled, and then I was in running. My body was once again pushing itself past all limits, in the dark, in the rain. Did they just kill her?! Was that bullet for her?! Was I too late?!

"Bella!" I yelled again. Jumping up the steps on the front stoop, I tried yanking open the door, but it wouldn't budge. I stuck my face up against glass and shielded my eyes with my hands to block out the street lights so that I could see inside easier. Even in the pitch black, I was able to make out four bodies in the middle of the room. A large body laying on the floor. Two large bodies standing. And a small figure sitting up on her knees in front of them. _Bella._

She was alive, but as my eyes scanned her body, I saw that there was an arm being held up in front of her, and it was pointing an object at her head. _The gun._ "Oh God, baby! No!"

I jumped back hurriedly looking around for something heavy to help me break the window. I had to get in there. Seth's quick and heavy footsteps came running from the direction of the car. "The police are on their way!" he panted.

"Help me find something to break the window with!" I yelled.

A few seconds later, he said, "Here," and he lifted a cigarette waste receptacle off the sidewalk next to the trashcan with a grunt.

"Yes!" I ran down the steps and took it from his hands before I ran back up the steps. It was definitely heavy enough to shatter glass. The base was filled with sand and water.

Standing in front of the door, ready for the fight of my life with my hands gripped around the neck, I swung it back and then smashed it into the barrier like I would a baseball bat. The weight of the object sent it soaring through the window into the store.

As soon as the glass shattered, I heard Bella scream, "Don't!" and I about lost it. They were hurting her. _All my fault._

With a strangled noise coming from my throat, I reached my hand in the opening and swiftly unlocked the three bolts and rushed into the bookstore with Seth right behind me. I fidgeted for the light switches, but before I was able to flip any of them, a very large body slammed into mine, knocking me to the ground with Seth underneath of me.

In the distance, I heard Bella yell out again, but a sick crunching noise below me interrupted her cries, and I knew that something in Seth's body had broken. Before I could think too much about it, though, a hand pulled me onto my back and a fist collided with my eye stunning me for a few seconds before I reacted with my own fury. Swinging my right arm up with brute force, I connected with Jake's nose, surprising him just enough that I could roll over and get more leverage and strength behind my punches.

He administered another blow to my eye just as I got him on his back, but I saw it coming early and was able to pull back enough that the force wasn't as strong as he had intended. The only problem with that was I was now caught off balance, and Jake had enough momentum in his swing to roll us over so that he was on top of me again and had the advantage.

Right as he got me flat on my back, I heard Bella sobbing closer to us now. "Do it," I heard her choke. The pain in her voice was one of pure agony and defeat. I'd never heard such a sound in my life, and I never wanted to hear it again.

"Bel-" I tried to say in an attempt to calm her, but Jake caught my jaw with his knuckles and cut me off.

Arching my right arm back, I threw another punch that was harder than I'd ever put on someone and got him in the left eye. Pulling back instantly, I hit him again in the same eye and was able to roll over once again. And then I hit him again before he could register what was happening. His head flopped to his right side, and I pulled my left arm back and collided my fist with nose. The give of the cartilage that accompanied the crunching and burst of blood told me that I'd crushed it.

Deranged with anger and hostility and revenge for everything that he had done to Bella and had planned to do to her, I hit him in the nose again with more strength than before. Adrenaline was pumping through my body as I saw the life slowly fading from his eyes. He didn't even try to hit me anymore, but I didn't care.

I wanted him dead.

Bringing my arm back one more time, it was caught in the air by two hands that wrapped around my pumping wrist. Before I could react, I was being dragged off of Jake's limp body and pulled to my feet.

I spun around to fight off James when I noticed it was a man in a police uniform. My eyes shot around the room, now able to see that sometime during my rage, the lights had been turned on. Five uniformed officers stood in the center of the room with their backs to me. Their shirts were stretched tightly across their backs, as they had their arms pulled up straight in front of them pointing their guns at something.

"Do it!" I heard Bella wail again, this time much louder.

I pushed off the officer holding me and started walking toward what they were pointing their guns at, terrified of what I would find. Why would she be saying that?

The voices of the others in the room were muffled as I stalked forward timidly. I could see the spit flying out of the officers' mouths as they yelled toward where her voice was coming from. Everything around was a blur of motion and sound except her voice and the music playing above.

"I don't want to live anymore," she cried. An officer with short brown hair moved a foot to the left just as she said that, and just as I almost tripped over someone's legs on the floor, and I saw her.

Bella stood ten feet in front of me and the police officers that were now at my sides. Tears streamed down her bright red and purple swollen cheeks and dropped onto James' arm, which was tightly secured around her throat. Her face was one of suffering and pain. I stared at her eyes that were clenched shut and followed them to the side where I saw the black gun pressed into her temple.

"Pull the trigger!" she shrieked, her whole body shaking with the power she put into her scream.

I gasped. _No, baby. Why?_

"Shut up, bitch!" James yelled back at her and then tightened his grip around her neck.

Bella grimaced in pain as she grasped at his arm. He was choking the life out of her.

"Blame Edward for all of this," he sneered into her ear. "He seduced and fucked my girlfriend and stole her from me, so I get to steal you away from him in return. Mate for mate."

My legs buckled under me, and it took all of my might to stay upright. My fucking dream was coming to life. Bella's dream was coming to life. They were mixed together into a horrifying reality. Darkness and Jake. James and a gun. Helplessness.

"James, please, don't hurt her," I blurted out, somehow finding my voice.

Bella's swollen eyes popped open and stared right at me through the deep pools that formed on the bottoms of her eyelids. I couldn't read what was going on behind her eyes, but she almost looked like she was seeing a ghost.

"She's innocent in all of this. Let her go, please. Kill _me,_" I begged. I reached out for her, ready to take her place, and James pulled back harder on her neck making her gasp for air.

"Don't take another step forward, or I'll pull the trigger," he spat.

I stepped back immediately, complying with his demands. I wasn't willing to get her hurt through my actions any more than she already had been previously and was being hurt right now. When I was in my original position, James leaned in and dug his nose into her hair and breathed in deeply.

"It's too bad Marcus had to go and ruin everything tonight, Bella," he sighed, trailing the tip of the gun along the side of her brutally bruised face. "He ruined what was going to happen tonight, and he even ruined Seattle. How hard is it to find out what room number you're in? We just wanted to fuck with you a little bit."

I inhaled sharply. I'd specifically never told him what floor or room were were on so that we had complete privacy with no interruptions.

"I had plans for you, tiny thing, before Marcus went and left us to fend for ourselves. Oh, what I would have done to you, Bella." He bent down and licked from her jaw to her hairline on the side of her face. She scrunched up her eyes in disgust and let out a cry.

I took a step forward again, completely on instinct to save her, and he took the gun away from her head and pointed it at my face without any warning.

At one point in my life I'd wondered if I would have the courage to sacrifice my own life if there ever arose a time that I could save someone that I loved. Maybe it was something that crossed everyone's mind at one time or another. Life was so unpredictable after all.

For instance, one moment you're planning a future with the woman you were going to ask to marry, and the next moment you're staring at her scared eyes as a man holds a gun to her head, ready to take that future away from you.

Fear of death had me skeptical of whether I could do it or not for years, but here I was. I was standing on a precipice, knowing that at any moment my life could be gone. My life wasn't my own, though. My life was standing in front of me, begging James to kill her. I didn't have a life without her. There was no other option.

"Do it," I whispered, echoing her own words from earlier. I turned my eyes to her, ready to say my goodbyes. Bella's body tensed up, and she began bouncing and reaching for his extended arm out in front of her.

"No!" she shrieked. "Me! Kill _me_, James!"

The muffled roar from the mouths of the police officers that stood around grew as they tried to calm the situation.

She pulled on his forearm, and I watched as the gun angled away from my face and traveled back to Bella's head. I couldn't miss how her shaking hands wrapped around his on the gun and held it in place there against her temple.

"Please," I begged her. "Why are you doing this, baby?"

Staring at me with terrified, pleading eyes and a trembling lip, she did not answer.

"Jake got to taste you, Bella," James continued. "I wanted my chance. He said you were amazing. So tight. So wet. So ready all the time. So...mouthwatering. I wanted my tongue in you, bringing you pleasure like he did. I wanted to fuck you and make you scream _my name _like Tanya screamed Edward's. And, I was _so close_," he growled, emphasizing his last words to show his anger.

The muscles and tendons in his arm flexed around her neck, tightening it slightly, but she didn't not react this time. Something had changed in her face. I'd seen this look before on nights when she was feeling like her therapy wasn't helping her heal. She felt ashamed. Her eyes shifted from mine and landed on the police officer standing next to me.

"Daddy-" she whispered. I threw my head over at him, my eyes widening in shock. I hadn't noticed who any of them were that surrounded me until now because I hadn't looked anywhere but at the two people in front of me. Charlie, Garrett, Lauren and two more I didn't know stood at my sides. "James said he had you here just like in my dream. I couldn't let you die because of me."

She paused to take a ragged breath.

"I'm so sorry, daddy. Please don't be mad at me. You were the best father anybody could ever have, and I wanted you to be safe," she cried. "I've always been so proud that you're my father. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you."

"You've never disappointed me, honey. You're my flesh and blood, and I love you," Charlie said.

"Thank you for dancing with me to our song. Those were always some of my favorite times."

"Shut up!" James roared.

"We have many more of those dances ahead of us," Charlie replied briskly, tightening his grip on his weapon. "You've got to be quiet now, though, Isabella. Listen to what he says. Let us handle this."

"Oh, isn't this so nice!" James exclaimed in a demented laugh. "Daughter bonds with father only moments before she dies. Let me see what I can do about that."

My stomach rolled. I felt so helpless. Every time I took a step towards her, he either threatened to pull the trigger or he turned the gun on me, which prompted her to beg him to kill her instead. The situation only escalated into more hysteria. I didn't know what to do.

"I know you've met her father, Edward, but does he know what you do to her every night?"

I stiffened, and so did Bella. We both knew exactly where he was going with this. All of the money in the world wouldn't stop what was about to come out of his mouth. James was getting angry and scared, and it only increased how frightened I was. At any moment, he could lose it.

"Does he know that you fuck her blind every night?"

And, here it was, something that would bring unwarranted shame on both of us in such a time of sadness.

"Does he know of the time you fucked her in her car out in public for everyone to see? What about the time you fucked her up against her bedroom window? He'd love to see the pictures, I'm sure. Her on her knees as you screwed her wet mouth. Her hands on the glass while you took her from behind like a beast. Her back pressed against the glass as you slammed into her. It was pornographic and _so hot_."

I couldn't look at Charlie. I didn't want to see his hatred for what his daughter and I shared.

Her eyes left his and traveled back to mine, and I about collapsed to the ground with what I was seeing. The life in her eyes was gone. There was a hollowness in them that I'd never witnessed, even when she was recounting the tragic events of the accident. She was giving in. She was giving up. She was accepting that she was going to die in this fight.

None of these were things she'd ever done. Bella had always been so strong and resilient no matter how hard life had gotten, and here, in this time when she needed to be the strongest, she was done. I had to be strong for her. Somewhere inside of me, I had to find enough for both of us.

"Edward," she croaked. James pressed the tip of the gun harder into her temple. "Thank you...for kissing me and dancing with me and loving me and showing me that true love is worth living for. I love you. I've loved you since the moment I saw you."

A strangled cry came out of me, and I about lost it. "Bella, please know that I love you with everything I am, but you've got to be quiet." I could barely get the words out. I was so frightened that he would pull the trigger at any moment. But, she couldn't go a second longer without knowing that. I loved her – only her – for the rest of my life.

"This was supposed to happen to me," she sobbed. "This was why I lived."

"No, baby," I cried along with her. "You lived so that I could find you and marry you and make pretty babies with you. It's not possible that we went through all of us this for it to end here. I love you, Bella. I've loved _you_ since the moment I saw you. And, I will love you for the rest of my life, with you by my side because I promised to never let go of you. I'm not letting go."

With my declaration, a peaceful look flooded over her face and she closed her eyes. I couldn't watch this. I couldn't watch her give in even after my words to her. I closed my eyes as well trying to connect to her some way so that I could send her strength and hope when a song came over the speakers that I recognized. It was "All I Need" by Mat Kearney.

A flurry of images passed behind my eyelids, and I wondered if this is what she was seeing, too.

The first time we saw each other outside her store. The way she lit up when she listened to her and Charlie's song. The first time I kissed her in the bar and then dancing later that night. Her sleeping soundly in her bed. Surprising her in the kitchen. The bat. Kissing her in the kitchen. Her in the tutu. Macaroni and cheese. Her telling me that she was falling in love me.

Our shower. Holding her while she slept, trying to soothe away her fears. Sending her home to the hospital alone. Hearing her surprise when she got her birthday present. The way we fit together perfectly when we made love for the first time. Playing the piano and singing at the reception. Carrying her from the beach. Playing on her mother's piano. Making love in the meadow. Watching reruns. Seattle. The private room at the restaurant. The dancing. The missed proposal. The dessert. The limo. Her writing the book on set.

All of the visions stopped when I heard that one word pass through her lips that I never wanted her to say to me.

"Live," she whispered. A tear fell from my closed eyes. This was it. I didn't want to live without her. How could I? She was my oxygen. She had been from the very beginning. I couldn't go through this life without her.

It all happened very slowly then. I heard the pulling of the trigger just like it was next to my ear. I heard the bullet spiraling out of the barrel. I heard the bullet crush through the skull. And, then there was an eerie silence before every noise in the room rushed to my ears with a fury.

My eyes flew open, and I saw Bella's lifeless body slink out of James' clutches, free of his arm, and fall toward the ground. With speed I didn't know I had, I was on my stomach crawling toward them before her body even hit the floor.

_One. Two. Three. Four_ bullets sliced through the thickened air above me, littering James' body with the hot lead when they found their target.

I crawled up her tiny frame and splayed my body over hers to protect it from any more harm. Enough had already been done, and I hadn't been able to save her. I'd promised that I'd never let anything happen to her. _All my fault._

"No!" I screamed in torture as I held onto her limp body under mine, twisting her clothes in my hands trying to hold onto whatever I could, molding every inch of her against me that was possible. "You said you'd never let go! You promised me!"

She was dead. She was dead because of what I'd done. The only woman I had ever loved was dead because of me. James had taken her away from me just like he said he would. I closed my eyes as I pressed my bloodied and tear-soaked face to her still warm cheek. "I'm so sorry," I sobbed, my body shaking with my cries. "It's all my fault. It's all my fault."

And then I let the darkness consume me.

_Please, God, don't let me wake up._

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**AUTHORS END NOTE: **

So... ummmm... yeah. I'm gonna go hide now. I can still read my reviews in my hideout, so go leave me a piece of your mind. Remember: There are still about ten chapters left.

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**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	24. Chapter 24 All Real

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

**I NOW HAVE A BANNER!** You can go check it out in my profile at the top of the picture links. I should have done this a long time ago, considering I'm a graphic designer! :)

Rated M: **angst, language**, violence, lemons

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Sorry for the delay. I don't like it, either. Here's the deal with this chapter: It's shorter than you're used to and that's because I have decided to cut this one early just like the chapters before. I kind of need a break for a while, and I hope you won't hate me because of it. We're not talking a long break or anything, maybe another couple of weeks before the next chapter comes out, but I need to relax for a few days.

Even though it's shorter, don't worry. This chapter shouldn't (hopefully it won't) disappoint. It's got everything you want and more, but it's just cut before I put any more in there because I want to get you a chapter now and not two weeks from now. Capiche? Alright. Let's see where we left off last chapter because I just KNOW you want to relive that all over again!

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**CHAPTER 24**

**All Real**

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_"No!" I screamed in torture as I held onto her limp body under mine, twisting her clothes in my hands trying to hold onto whatever I could, molding every inch of her against me that was possible. "You said you'd never let go! You promised me!"_

_She was dead. She was dead because of what I'd done. The only woman I had ever loved was dead because of me. James had taken her away from me just like he said he would. I closed my eyes as I pressed my bloodied and tear-soaked face to her still warm cheek. "I'm so sorry," I sobbed, my body shaking with my cries. "It's all my fault. It's all my fault."_

_And then I let the darkness consume me._

_Please, God, don't let me wake up._

_

* * *

_

"I just spoke with the coroner. He'll be here in fifteen minutes. He was out to dinner with his wife."

"Did you tell him how many bodies there are?" This voice sounded familiar to me. But, so did the other when I thought about it.

"Yes sir. He said he'd bring along an assistant. Once they're done and once we collect the evidence, I'll call the team in to clean up the scene."

"Okay, thank you for your help, Garrett."

"It's my job, sir. Is there anything else I can do? I know this must be hard on you."

"No, I need to do this," he sighed. "This is _my_ job."

Yelling people were all around me, most of their voices muffled and distant except for those closest. The floor rumbled, waxing and waning beneath my body as those attached to the voices ran around hurriedly. I couldn't open my eyes. It felt like the weight of the world was on them, holding them down with vice grips. It felt like the weight of the world was on my entire frame, in fact. Attempting to move seemed almost impossible. _What happened? Where am I?_

A scene flashed through my mind. _James. A gun. Police officers. _I flinched. Another dream. More pieces to the puzzle -- the puzzle with infinite pieces it seemed. Would I ever see the whole picture? Would it ever end?

"We need to move him off of her. Get a paramedic over here. He wasn't hurt during the gunfire, but he was involved in a fight with Jake. The cut on his face looks deep."

Like a curse had been lifted, the weight of the world slid off of me only seconds later. _Was someone on top of me?_

"Bella, honey, I need you to wake up," I heard.

A warm, comforting hand laced with my own and lifted it to warm, comforting lips that placed a soft kiss on my knuckles. "Bella, it's your dad. I need you to open your eyes so that we know you're okay. You've been involved in an altercation and you lost consciousness. The paramedics are here to assess your injuries and take you to the hospital."

I fought against my heavy lids with all of my strength, but it was difficult. My right eye almost felt like it was swollen, unable to open.

Everything about the sounds around me told me to stay in my cocoon of darkness. I was content there; safe and unaware. But my dad needed me to open my eyes. As my lids cautiously, slowly came open, I squinted with the bright light and motion all around me. My cheek protested my tightened skin with the action. The intense soreness on my face was something I'd never experienced before.

"Hey, she's awake!" he yelled. I winced from his volume. It was too loud. The sound reverberated in my ears, the ache overwhelming.

"Dad?" I rasped.

The flames...oh, the flames. My throat was on fire. I wanted to scream at the burning, flicking, teasing blaze, but I didn't want to make it worse. If I laid still, if I didn't speak, the pain was almost nonexistent. Almost.

He bent down over me but did not touch anything but the hand he held securely. "What hurts, honey? Tell me so that we can help you."

The paramedics descended on me at that point from the peripheral blur, poking and prodding and straightening my twisted body. The motion was too fast. My stomach throbbed in pain as much as my cheek and throat did. This was so scary and so odd.

"My throat. My cheek. My stomach," I answered in clipped sentences. Speaking was hell, but my thinking was becoming infinitely worse as my frenzied mind began to search for answers. _What the hell is going on? Was there another accident? Where am I? Please help me._

"Hey, Bella," a male paramedic that I had seen before said in a calming and light tone. "We've got to stop meeting like this."

"Joshua?" I whispered.

He nodded. "We're going to lift your shirt a little bit, okay? Do you remember what caused your abdomen to hurt?"

I had no time to even ponder an answer before a woman bent over my head and pulled my eyelid all the way open with her latex covered thumb. A bright flashlight shined in my eye. "Son of a bitch, lady!" I coughed, trying to wriggle out of her grasp. "Give me some warning!"

Joshua, while still at my stomach, pressed down with his fingers. "Ooooohh," I groaned, writhing in pain. The urge to curl into a ball, to protect myself, was growing by the second. Tears began to prickle up in my eyes. I could feel the tremble of my bottom lip in my cheek. "Didn't I tell you my stomach hurts? Why would you go do something like that? You're not very nice."

He chuckled. If I could lift my arms, I would have flipped him off, as well as the lady with the thumb.

"Bella, stop resisting," dad said. "They're trying to help you." _Trying to help? They're hurting me more. Why the hell am I in pain?_

"What happened to me?" I finally asked. He had to have answers. There was a reason why I hurt this much. I just couldn't remember why.

He took a deep breath and shuddered slightly. "About 25 minutes ago, we got a 911 call at the station saying there was a woman that was about to be attacked. As soon as the caller said your name, I was out the door."

_Attacked?_

"When we got here, Jake was getting the shit beat out of him and his _friend_ was holding you at gunpoint."

He continued with the story, but I didn't hear any of it. His words brought back every memory of the events that transpired tonight.

Marcus, James and Jake locking me in the store. Jake hitting me, choking me and kicking me in the stomach. All of his pain and suffering that he hid over the years. James slapping me when I defied him. Marcus wanting to rape me and Jake killing him. The breaking window. The fighting. Someone laying on the floor. The warm steel of the gun. The police. James' tight grip on my neck. The confessions. My dad. Edward's love. Edward pleading with me to be quiet. Edward. Edward.

"Edward!" I screamed, pushing past the pain. "Where's Edward?" _Edward was here tonight. Edward must not have been the man laying on the ground. Edward tried to save me. Where was he?_

"The paramedics are working on him. Give them time," my father said, trying to calm me down.

"Why? What's wrong?" I turned my head to the left to look for him and screamed.

Dad thrust his torso in front of my line of sight, temporarily blocking the vision but never erasing it from my mind.

James' blue eyes stared at me as he laid on the ground only feet away, his glare different this time compared to those in the past. It was still angry and cold, but there was a fear in them. He knew things had begun spiraling out of control. Neither of us had expected Edward to show up or the police. It just wasn't in the plan.

The plan was for me to die.

We _both_ lost in that aspect.

James and I had wanted it so much that we were willing to do whatever we had to do to succeed, but we each had such different reasons. His was for retaliation; a deluded game of life-long misery and suffering. Mine was for Edward's safety; he would never torture Edward again once he was handed the justice for his unforgiving offenses.

Only_ James_ lost in that aspect.

Dark red blood that once boiled under the surface of his skin spilled from his multiple wounds and soaked through the cotton material of his white shirt. The fear etched in his eyes was permanent, frozen in a time and space where chaos ranked supreme. And a clean bullet hole in the middle of his forehead was a reminder of the emptiness that now dominated his once manic thoughts.

I grimaced and turned my head to the right to scan each row of books looking for Edward, but I couldn't see him or much of anything because my eyes would not adjust. _Where is he? Why is he not with me? I need him._

"He lost consciousness," dad said. "I think he thought you were killed because he kept apologizing to you and saying that you promised you wouldn't let go. It was too much for you to handle. You had passed out as soon as I pulled the trigger."

I gasped. "You...killed...James? You did that to him?" I whispered. I didn't recall a time before in all his years on the police force that he'd ever used his gun on a human being.

Forks was a quiet town before all of this. Murderers and crazed lunatics didn't roam the streets. That was saved for larger cities like Seattle or Portland...

_"A killer? In Forks, Washington? Population: Seven?" _I had laughed at him that first night at the bonfire after he had accused Edward of possibly being one.

I wondered what would have happened if I'd have known then.

"I didn't like the look in his eyes, Bells. We'd given him all the chances we're required, and I was ready to get you out of danger. He was going to act at any second. I love you, darlin'. I couldn't risk losing you. You're all I've got left." His voice cracked as he said the last bit, and I knew he was obviously struggling with what had happened tonight.

Garrett came running up then with a paramedic pushing a stretcher. The female with the thumb jumped up and helped lower the bed so they could easily lift me up onto it.

"It's chaos out there, sir," Garrett said as they got me on the stretcher and started to push me toward the front door. "We're trying to hold them back. We've got all of our officers surrounding him and the ambulance, but there's too many of them. We need to be careful when we get her out there."

Reality hit me like a ton of bricks. Edward was outside.

"Who are they trying to hold back?" I panicked, trying to sit up in the stretcher. The paramedics stopped moving me in concern. "Why is he going to the hospital?"

Charlie pressed down on my shoulder to keep me in place. "Try to calm down. We'll be at the hospital in five minutes. I'll make sure we find him once we're there to see what's wrong."

Before I could protest, I was pulled through the door and flashes of cameras blinded me and the noise level from the paparazzi and bystanders was becoming clearer to my sensitive ears with every millisecond I was exposed to it. Dad threw his coat over my head, but I could hear a high-pitched screaming of my name cutting through all of the other yelling. I would recognize that voice anywhere. _Alice._

"Bella! Let me through you gigantic imbecile! She's practically my sister!"

I threw the coat off my face to see Alice and Jasper trying to get past both a police officer and the yellow police tape that had been put up around the entrance to the bookstore. She had gotten past him enough that her body was stretching the tape several yards to the point that it was about to snap. Dad yelled at the officer to let them through, and Alice began stretching it more. I wasn't even sure if she knew it was there anymore.

Her eyes and nose were red and swollen and her cheeks tear-streaked as she reached her arms out for me.

Jasper, more concerned than I had ever seen him, moved his hand down and pulled up the yellow plastic. "Under, honey," he said. She was able to run to me freely then after she ducked, nearly jumping onto the stretcher with me as I was carried down the stairs.

"Bella, are you okay? What happened? Who did this to you? Tell me you're okay. Look at your face! I'm going to kill whoever did this to you! Who was it? Tell me right now. I will hunt him down and unleash a wrath on him that he's never seen!"

"Jake. A very sick Jake," I croaked. I turned my head to dad who stood on the other side, closest to the majority of the photographers that were trying to get through the barricades. "Where is he, dad?"

He closed his eyes for a second as if he was trying to hold in his anger and then spoke. "They took him to the hospital. Edward crushed his face in. He was unconscious."

It was Edward and Jake fighting. He wasn't the man on the floor. That's how he was standing there in front of me as I begged James.

I turned back to Alice and Jasper. "Edward," I whispered shakily, about ready to cry again. "Did you see him come out?"

She nodded grimly and her and Jasper both turned their heads so that they were looking out into the road. I narrowed my eyes in the direction they were looking and saw the sweeping backs and flashing cameras of what looked like a hundred people surrounding something.

"He looked unconscious or drugged or something, and they had an oxygen mask over his nose. He went by so quickly, and Emmett and Rosalie ran after him and the stretcher before we could find out what was wrong," Jasper said in a rush of air.

"That's him?" I sputtered, blinking through the growing pools of tears in my eyes as I thought about the love of my life being surrounded by all of those people out to exploit his pain.

Alice nodded.

There were hands that tried to stop me. I'm sure my father's hands were a pair of them. Maybe the paramedics and possibly Garrett or Jasper, too. But nothing was going to keep me from launching myself off of that bed to get to him because he _needed_ me. Heavy and quick footprints followed behind me as I sprinted across the wet pavement with my weak and tired legs. They wanted to give out and fall to the ground. They begged me to let someone carry the rest of me over there so that they could finally take a break. I wouldn't have any of it, though.

My shaking hands met the backs of the first photographers at the outer edge of the herd, and they began to push them out of the way.

"Get out of my way!" I screamed. "Move!"

It only took a few seconds of this commotion for everyone to know exactly who it was that was shoving them, and then all hell broke loose.

"_Bella, who did this to you? Did Edward beat you?"_

"_Did you hit Edward?"_

"_Did you have a fight over Tanya Paul?"_

"_Were you aware he was having an affair with Victoria Embry only hours ago?"_

They were relentless with their accusations and cameras, but I did not stop. It was all a lie. Everything was a fucking lie. From the very beginning we had been pushed and pulled, humiliated and manhandled for everyone's gain but our own. Marcus, James, Jake, the paparazzi, the magazines. Every one of them.

Breaking my way through the last of the photographers, I broke into the void of no people, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Holy fuck!" I heard Rosalie gasp. She was on her phone, bawling her eyes out as Emmett attempted to help the police hold back the photographers as they made their way to the ambulance.

"You're alive," she sobbed, running to me and grasping my face. "Edward kept muttering that you were dead! Oh, Jesus, Bella. We thought you'd been killed. Esme, Carlisle, she's alive!"

Her voice trailed off, fading into the night, just like every other thunderous vibration around me until there was only silence.

In front of me I saw a disheveled man lying on a stretcher with his head turned in my direction. He stared at me weakly through the slits of his eyelids with a hollowness that I had never witnessed before in an alive human being. An oxygen mask was tied snugly over his nose, and I could see the fogging of the plastic as he took too rapid of breaths.

All too quickly, his stretcher disappeared up into the ambulance, and the one person that I'd been needing to see and hold onto was gone again.

"Edward!" I screamed, thrashing my arms to push off the people that lunged toward the vehicle to follow. Misjudging the distance I would need to jump, I fell to my knees in the back of the ambulance as paramedics rushed to get him secured. With a slam, the doors closed behind me, and the sirens came on.

What was happening in front of me was something out of an emergency room drama. The two paramedics maneuvered around the cramped space yelling out his vitals and medical terms that I could not understand. His shirt was completely off now, as it had been cut down the front, and they had him rolled onto his side.

"No wounds to his back," a man said as he placed him back down. Edward's head flopped to the side limply, and I about screamed at the thoughts that conjured in my mind.

"Edward?" I whimpered. Scooting forward, his eyes caught mine but it was as if he didn't recognize me. Looking at his oxygen mask, I could see his lips moving behind the clear plastic mouthing my name over and over as if he were reciting it as a chant.

"Edward?" I whispered again, moving closer, getting within inches of his arm that draped over the side of his stretcher. He didn't react to my voice.

"Acute stress reaction?" the paramedic asked the other.

Timidly I reached out to touch him, but I pulled my hand back because I was afraid of what it might do to him. He seemed to be off some place distant in the world -- some place that was scary and empty and lonely.

"Edward?" He shook his head and looked down at his lap. A tear traveled lazily down his cheek and around the rim of the oxygen mask until it disappeared under his jaw. "Can you hear me, baby? What have I done to you?" my voice cracked.

"We were told that there was a shooting death, and that he witnessed it. Is that correct?" the paramedic asked me quickly.

I nodded.

"If he was closely tied to the casualty, that would be enough to put him into mental shock."

Closely tied. I wanted to laugh, but there was no humor in this situation at all.

_No. Not closely tied._

Forever bound. Forever bound by the rawest, deepest ties that anyone could imagine. For I was the casualty in his eyes.

Completely ignoring the protests and the hands that tried to stop me again, I jumped into his lap. I had put him in this state, and I had to pull him out of it.

Straddling his legs, I pushed away the hands of the others in the back of the ambulance as it sped down the road.

"Edward, baby, look at me. I'm not dead. Please look at me." I ran my palm across his forehead wiping off the sweat that had formed in beads. His eyes followed my hand as it traced back up to his hairline and down the side of his face again avoiding the cut above his cheek.

"I'm here. Feel my heartbeat." I took his ice cold hand and flattened it on my chest. My heart beat wildly within me, calling out to him, crying that he couldn't feel my presence or this electricity that was radiating between us.

"Do you feel that?"

He shook his head in denial and looked down again. His refusal to believe what was in front of him did not and would not deter me from making him see and feel me there with him. I grabbed his face and pulled it up to look at me again, but his eyes were closed.

"Open your eyes and see me, Edward. I'm not dead. James didn't kill me. You didn't see what you thought you saw."

His eyes popped open and they held something in them. Was it recognition? Had I finally found the key? I jumped at the chance to explain. Maybe this was what he needed.

"James is dead. Not me. The bullet was for him. My father killed him; he did not kill me."

His stare grew stronger, but he still did not speak. And I knew what I had to say.

"I'm here," I whispered only to him, trailing my fingertips along his bare chest, coming to a rest over his heart. "I'm here, Edward...and...I'm never leaving."

Those words had struck deep into my soul when he'd said them to me when he thought I was at peace, asleep in his arms after a nightmare. They found a home in my heart, and now they had so much more meaning beyond simply declaring that he would not leave me alone that night to fight James and Jake by myself in my nightmares. He never had left me alone – even this time when everything was against us. He'd always come to my rescue no matter how impossible it seemed, and because of him, I could say these words and mean them.

Because of him, I had lived again.

His eyes filled with tears, mirroring my own, and I knew that it had worked.

"Bella?" he breathed, his entire body beginning to tremble.

Nodding my head as my body began to shake with either my relief or my cries or my diminishing fear or all of them combined, I removed his oxygen mask. With a yearning need to send him every ounce of the love that I had for him, I crashed my lips to his with such ferocity that the force rippled into my cheeks.

He had been stripped of everything when he thought I had been taken from him. His happiness. His fervor. His every reason to wake up. I could feel the despair with each stroke of his tongue along mine. I could feel the desperation in the way he held me tightly to his chest like he was afraid to let go. All of his passion for me was put into that kiss as he melted in my arms, grasping onto whatever he could.

"This has to be a dream," he murmured into my mouth. "But, I can feel you in my arms."

"Not a dream," I cried, shaking my head from side to side.

"I can feel your body heat on my chest."

I tightened my arms around his shoulders to hold myself closer.

"I can taste your mouth."

Angling my head, I deepened our kiss, sliding my tongue along his softly yet possessively.

"Is it real?" he exhaled, holding the back of my head strongly with his palm and fingers.

Not having noticed the ambulance had come to a stop or that the sirens had stopped blaring, the back of the ambulance came open at that moment, and the paramedics lifted me from the stretcher so they could get Edward out without any risk to my safety or his.

Before I could answer him and assure him that it was all real, the wheels were down on the pavement, and he was through the sliding doors that read EMERGENCY ROOM in bright red.

I could hear Edward yelling, "Is it real?" on the other side of the glass as they rushed him forward.

Jumping from the metal steps as quickly as I could, I ran toward the same doors that he just went through, reaching out for him, answering him with the only truth there was.

"It's real...It's real...It's real."

The sliding doors opened for me, and I heard them close, and that's when I noticed that my feet had stopped moving. My arm was still extended out in front of me, but it was reaching toward an empty space in front of two large doors, one empty space that had just been occupied by Edward before he disappeared behind them, leaving me there helpless.

"It's all real," I whimpered. The only person that heard me was me, though. He hadn't heard. He didn't know.

Standing alone only feet inside the entrance, the enormity of everything that had occurred over the past few hours all began to sink in. Dropping to the tile on my knees roughly, I started to sob.

"It's all real," I cried. "All of it was real."

Every pain in my body. Every word that was said tonight. Every gunshot that rang through the air. It was all real. I had begged someone to kill me. I had held a gun to my own head and contemplated pulling the trigger myself. This had all happened in front of my father and the love of my life. And now he didn't know what was real and what was a dream anymore.

What had I done?

A man picked me up from my ball on the floor and cradled me against his chest while someone else's fingers brushed the tear-soaked hair away from my face.

"I-" I gasped for air. "I can't...I can't breathe." My chest was collapsing in on me. The neck of my shirt seemed to be shrinking in around my throat and choking me.

"Hold on, Bells," Emmett panted.

My body was being jostled around, moved from one person to another to a stretcher. "I can't breathe," I choked.

"You're having a panic attack," a doctor said above me. "Try to relax. Everything is okay."

"No, no, no," I repeated. "Nothing is okay. I almost died. I _wanted_ to die. Edward doesn't know for certain that I didn't. Nothing is okay."

The bright, sterile rectangular lights passed above me one after the other until I was wheeled through two wide doors into a room of curtains.

"He still doesn't know," I choked, grabbing for Emmett's collar unsuccessfully. "Nothing is okay."

"Bella, we need you to calm down," Rosalie said with authority, grabbing my hand.

A rush of quick air cooled my skin, and then a hand was wiping across my brow. "Baby, try taking deep breaths," my father said.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can," he whispered next to my ear.

"What have I done?" I cried. "What did I do to him?"

"Is that a benzodiazepine, doctor?" Even though Rosalie's voice was off in the distance, her hand was still linked with mine, squeezing tighter. The room was spinning. Everyone around me was blurry again.

"Can you feel it?" Rosalie asked what seemed like hours later. "You've been given something that's going to stop your panic attack. Try taking deep breaths while it starts to work."

"He doesn't know I'm alive, Rosalie," I whimpered.

"Emmett's gone to him," she assured. "It's all going to be okay, Bella. You're alive. Edward is alive. Trust me that it will all be okay."

_Could_ I trust her? Had anything _ever_ been okay since my life had been turned upside down nine years ago? I had lost my mother and the final few years of my childhood by trying to take care of my father. My friend and former fiance was more tortured than I ever could have imagined, and my relationship with him was ruined because of it. Hiding our feelings had seemed like the right thing to do all of these years, but it was what brought us to where we were today – beaten emotionally and physically.

No, nothing had ever been okay.

I was broken.

The spinning around the room and tightening on my lungs and throat began to ease as my father and Rosalie talked to me soothingly. By the time the drug had taken its full effect, my body was exhausted from all it had been through.

I'd pushed it past its limits time and time again, and it was tired of fighting after all of these years. _I_ was tired of fighting.

"You can go to sleep now, darlin'," my dad said with a kiss to the top of my head. "I love you, and don't ever believe that will change."

* * *

"Bella?" someone whispered near my ear almost too quietly for me to hear.

I'd been in and out of sleep and awake, tossing and turning, unable to find the place I needed to be to calm the thoughts swirling through my head... unable to get Edward and the pain I caused him out of my head.

The voice of the man was someone that had spoken to me before, but I couldn't put my finger on it at that low of a level.

"Mmmhmm?" I mumbled groggily.

"It's Carlisle and Esme, sweetheart."

"Carlisle? Esme?" I whispered, questioning whether I'd heard correctly.

"Yes," she answered sadly. "Rosalie called us. We were on our way to the airport the second we heard her crying. We got in a few hours ago."

"Oh."

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

Taking a shuddering breath, I answered in the most honest way I knew because the physical pain wasn't what I felt. What I felt was what kept me up all night. "Like everything I have ever wanted has been given to me, but at the same time taken away." I could hear tears dropping onto the pillow below my head as I spoke. "None of them can hurt us anymore, but the suffering is still there."

"Only if you let it be, Bella," Esme replied warmly but with a hint of strain in her throat. "You've been an inspiration throughout this entire ordeal, and I barely knew half of what you were going through... until now."

"You know?"

My eyes were adjusted enough to the darkness that I could see her nod.

"Everything?"

They both nodded this time.

"How?"

"Someone has been waiting outside the door since we walked in, and I think he can answer that for you."

Confused, I rolled over slowly as Carlisle and Esme walked around the end of the bed and opened the door. When it was fully open, the light from the hallway created a silhouette of a tall man standing in the door frame. His shoulders were uncharacteristically slumped, but the disarray of his hair was unmistakable.

My chin began to quiver as the tears poured down my face.

Walking forward a few feet silently, the door slid shut behind him with a whisper along its hinges and closed with a quiet click. He stood in the middle of the room, defeated and alone, staring sadly at me before he found his way to the side of the bed. Lifting the blankets, he crawled in next to me and pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me.

The distinct scent of the hospital that had invaded my nose from the second I walked through the front doors was drowned out by the scent of him as he dug his face into the crook between my neck and shoulder and cried along with me.

"I'm sorry, Edward," I sobbed. _I'm sorry I've broken you, too._

**

* * *

AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

I can't express to you the level of my sincere gratitude for all of your comments last chapter. These characters may ultimately belong to Stephenie, but I've tried to make them my own, and you seem to have a strong connection with them. That is more satisfying than you can imagine. Thank you for caring about Bella enough to get mad at me for "killing her." I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations. There's a lot more ahead for them before this story is over.

I'll see you soon. *smooches*

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	25. Chapter 25 Waking Up

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language**, violence, lemons

* * *

Whew! What a difference a small break makes! Thanks for being such patient little lambs. I appreciate all of you wishing me a happy time off from writing. Thank you for being so understanding. I'll include the last part of the last chapter at the beginning as a little refresher on what happened those few weeks ago. Some of you thought it was more stressful than any of the other chapters, and that's completely understandable. We hadn't seen Edward break down quite so badly before, and nobody wants to see someone suffer that much.

I got some comments on how descriptive everything was last chapter. I did that on purpose. Bella's senses were ultra-heightened (like vampire senses) because she was so aware of all of the threats coming at her. Now, it's time for both of them to wake up to a new life, a dulled life without those threats. Let's see how this plays out.

* * *

**CHAPTER 25**

**Waking Up**

_"Someone has been waiting outside the door since we walked in, and I think he can answer that for you."_

_Confused, I rolled over slowly as Carlisle and Esme walked around the end of the bed and opened the door. When it was fully open, the light from the hallway created a silhouette of a tall man standing in the door frame. His shoulders were uncharacteristically slumped, but the disarray of his hair was unmistakable._

_My chin began to quiver as the tears poured down my face._

_Walking forward a few feet silently, the door slid shut behind him with a whisper along its hinges and closed with a quiet click. He stood in the middle of the room, defeated and alone, staring sadly at me before he found his way to the side of the bed. Lifting the blankets, he crawled in next to me and pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me._

_The distinct scent of the hospital that had invaded my nose from the second I walked through the front doors was drowned out by the scent of him as he dug his face into the crook between my neck and shoulder and cried along with me._

_"I'm sorry, Edward," I sobbed. _I'm sorry I've broken you, too.

_

* * *

_

Hushed whispers filtered through the room from the end of the bed interrupting my silent adoration.

"Should we wake them?"

"No, Carlisle. Let them sleep."

"She hasn't been examined thoroughly. She was complaining of stomach pain last night when the paramedics were working on her, and look at her face and throat. I'd like it if Dr. Cope could take a look at her and make sure there is nothing seriously wrong."

"I agree with Charlie, Esme."

"But look at how he's holding her. They're comforted this way. Last night was very rough on both of them, and they need each other more than anything right now. We should leave them alone."

Clearing the fatigue from my throat quietly, I grumbled, "I agree with my mother, dad. Leave us alone."

Mom gasped the tiniest bit at being caught.

"Son, Bella has been hurt very badly, and if your eyes were open right now, you'd see that she needs to have the doctor check her injuries."

"I've been awake for more than an hour. I've already gone over every inch of her I could before you got in here, and I kissed every bruise and mark they put on her."

"Oh," my mother whimpered before the noise was stifled with her hand across her mouth. I could tell she was trying not to cry or wake Bella.

Charlie cleared his throat like fathers do when they hear something they don't really want to know about their daughters, but no thanks to James, he already knew the most intimate details of our relationship. What was this in comparison to what he'd already heard?

"Look," I whispered, lifting my head and squinting my eyes open. "I was kept away from her from the moment that I heard her screaming and crying last night. I may have admittedly had no firm grasp on reality up until that point, but as I have said to Emmett before, her screams could sober me up from a week-long binge. And before you ask mom, no I have never participated in a week-long binge of any kind. But if you all could _please _give me at least until she wakes up on her own, I would greatly appreciate it."

"Huh," my mother smirked triumphantly back and forth at the two men in the room standing on either side of her. "Let's go, men."

She grabbed the sleeves of their jackets and pulled them toward the door. With a small breeze of air through the room, Bella and I were alone again in this room and in this bed that wasn't nearly big enough for the two of us to fit comfortably. But I wouldn't change it. Ever. I knew she was safe because I could feel her chest moving against mine when she took a breath. I could feel every shiver when she got too cold. I could feel her heartbeat.

Her heart, small in size yet large in the love it held, was everything. Its beat was simple and rhythmic, audible in the stillness.

_Thump... Thump... Thump_...

Those thumps were the most significant sounds in my world. Because they let her to stay with me.

The room had been dark when I was allowed to go to her last night. Evidence of the assault she had endured was hidden in the looming shadows, the worry accompanying it saved for a time when our hearts weren't breaking for the other. Nothing could have prepared me, though, for what I would see with the dim light of the morning streaming in through the thin plastic of the vertical blinds.

The red and purple bruise on Bella's right cheekbone was brutal, covering almost the entire portion of the swollen area under and around her eye. It hurt me deeply to see what had been done to her beautiful face, but the unmistakable dark purple hand print around her throat made me want to throw up.

She had been strangled – choked long enough that her attackers individual fingers were clearly visible.

The three spaces between his fingers. Every bend of his knuckle. The large circle of his thumb. Each long fingernail that needed cut.

By far, the largest mark was on her stomach, though. The oval shape of this one puzzled me, and I was sure that I would be livid when I found out how she got it. Had she been punched? Kicked?

Since she had worn herself out crying into my shirt, she had been flinching and talking to me in her sleep. She apologized profusely in her dreams, but I kept trying to assure her that it wasn't necessary. I caught "What have I done?" and "I'm sorry I've broken you, too," dozens of times, but the rest was mumbled, too quiet to understand.

Deciding it wasn't exactly a nightmare, I chose not to wake her because she needed and deserved the rest that she was getting, though I knew it wasn't a peaceful rest.

It probably hadn't been a whole thirty minutes after my mother had carted our two protective, worried fathers out of the room when I heard the door open again. Glancing up exasperatedly, I saw Charlie tiptoeing across the tiles.

"Hey," he whispered. "Thought you should know that I just got word that Jake woke up about fifteen minutes ago."

I immediately became alert. When they were able to calm me down last night after Bella had first gone to sleep due to the medication she was given for her panic attack, Charlie came to my room to explain what was going on with Jake as well as get my statement. During my rage-induced pummeling of said asshole, one I would engage in again without any sort of hesitation, I had managed to very thoroughly break his nose as well as his jaw and cheekbone. The doctors had him in surgery at that time to repair bone fragments under his eye.

"His attorney is on his way, and there's something I need to tell you."

"What, Charlie?" This didn't sound good.

"You know how I told you there would be a chance that Jake could press charges against you?"

"Yeah," I said wearily. My entire body tensed up waiting for him to continue.

"I don't think you've got a whole lot to worry about anymore."

"Why?" I asked, surprised by his choice of words.

"The surveillance footage was watched, and... Jake is who shot and killed Marcus, not James." My mouth dropped open. "There is no way in hell those charges could stand when you were defending yourself against a murderer."

"Jake killed Marcus?" Had I heard that correctly?

"Yes. He shot him in the head, right over Bella's sh-"

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Both of us turned our heads to the door to see a man stride in a white lab coat with a button-up shirt and tie and khakis underneath. He was tall and balding, but what little hair he had left was whitened with age. "I'm Dr. Cope," he said looking at me and Charlie and then to Bella. "I've come to check on the patient to see if she can be released."

My plan to let Bella sleep was not going to work, but maybe this was for the best. If she was given the all clear, which I hoped she was, I could take her home and get her comfortable in our bed where she could rest. It would also get her farther away from Jake. Even though he had a guard at his door and was more than likely handcuffed to his bed, it was still unnerving knowing one of the men that had almost killed her was awake at the other end of the hall.

Charlie stood up and moved to the side to make room for the doctor to walk up next to the hospital bed.

"I'm sorry, but I'd like it if she was the only one in the bed while I examined her," he said to me with a hint of understanding in his tone.

I nodded reluctantly and adjusted my arm under her head, preparing to wake her. Brushing my hand down the untouched, still-porcelain side of her face, I whispered quietly in her ear.

"Wake up, beautiful. Dr. Cope is here to check on you."

She stirred, groaning a little, and burrowed into my neck where I had just moved her from. I sighed at the feeling of the small burst of air leaving her parted lips, fluttering across the skin that never thought it would ever feel her touch or presence again. Jesus, why did we ever have to move from this position?

Running my hand down her arm and back up again, I spoke a little louder. "We're gonna need you to wake up, my sleeping beauty. Can you do that for us?"

She groaned a little louder this time, obviously irritated, but her eyes slowly came open just enough that she could look through the slits. I wished that neither of the other men were in the room at that moment because of the amount of emotional pain that she had swimming in her eyes. I could read the sadness in them and her apologies spilling over from her dreams.

Her lip began to tremble as she stared up at me.

"No, baby. Don't cry," I whispered, placing featherlight kisses on her cheek and over her eyelashes. There was nothing I wouldn't have given to kiss her like I wanted to... to make her feel me there all around her... to take all of what she was thinking about away.

"I'm Dr. Cope," the man said, trying to distract her from whatever she was holding in and not saying. She sniffled and rotated her head to his voice. Using her palm, she swiped unsuccessfully at the tears that were sliding down her cheeks. "It looks like you've got some nasty bruises on you that I'd like to take a look at. I think you're going to be just fine, but I want to make sure."

Noticing that she had calmed down and the doctor was successful at distracting her from whatever was making her cry, I slid out of the bed and pulled up the chair that had been against the wall.

Every slight touch to her cheek make me cringe. I knew it had to hurt as my own face was killing me. I was grateful that she didn't have any cuts, though, like I did. The bruises would fade. In time there would be no evidence of this horrible attack on her life.

When the doctor was done on her face, he moved to her neck.

"Any problems swallowing?" he asked, feeling her glands and then down the entire column to her collarbone. She shook her head. "What about speaking? You haven't said a word since I came in here."

I sat up a little straighter just now noticing the same thing.

"I can speak," she whispered.

"Okay," Dr. Cope smiled sadly. "Just checking."

He wrote some things down in his chart and then lifted her shirt they'd never taken her out of to look at her abdomen.

"Do you remember how you got this bruise, Bella?" he asked, feeling around her stomach and then over the top of it carefully. She grimaced, and my stomach rolled. I didn't know if it was sympathy pains or just nausea that she was in so much pain, but I didn't like it.

"Jake kicked me while I was on the floor after he did this," she answered quietly, pointing at her cheek followed by her neck, and then everything in the room turned red. I shot up out of my chair with one clear mission, and that was to kill Jake. But before I knew it, Charlie's hands were on my shoulders pushing me back down onto the cushion.

"Sit down, Edward," he demanded. "You beat the shit out of him already for what he did to my daughter."

"That is not good enough for what he did to her! Look at her!" I yelled, waving my hand erratically in her direction. Something other that myself had taken over every thought and muscle in my body almost instantly. I'd kept such a strong hold on my temper, turning it into devotion and worship of her instead, but now that I knew what had happened, I had completely lost that control.

"I know," Charlie gritted through his teeth, trying to calm himself down as much as me. Knowing that I had no choice in the matter, I tried to do the same thing by taking deep even breaths until the shaking stopped.

Charlie was right. Nothing would ever feel like fair punishment. Did I want to walk down the hall and torture Jake until he begged me to kill him? Yes. Did I want to go to the morgue and re-kill Marcus and James? Yes. Would it feel like justice had been served for everything they had put us through?

I wished I could say yes.

The angry, vengeful voice in my head was quieting down allowing me to hear the other voice in the room.

"What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?" was being choked out behind hands that covered Bella's face.

My heart clenched, and I jumped up with a much different mission this time.

"Whoa, baby. What? No, you haven't done anything. It's okay. I'm sorry I got so mad." I was brushing her tangled hair out of her fingers, running my hand over her head trying to calm her down. The doctor had turned and was talking to Charlie quietly, so I crawled back in the bed and pulled her against me as she kept repeating it.

Why was she so quiet and then all of a sudden saying these accusatory things to herself? Why was she crying so much? I didn't know, and I didn't know what to do besides holding her until she calmed down. It's what I'd always done, but why wasn't it working now?

Closing my eyes, I pressed my lips to her forehead, desperate to send her my love instead of my anger, and then I heard someone next to us start to sing.

_Hey where did we go,  
Days when the rains came  
Down in the hollow,  
Playin' a new game  
Laughin' and a runnin' hey, hey  
Skippin' and a jumpin'  
In the misty morning fog with  
Our hearts a thumpin' and you  
My brown eyed girl  
You my brown eyed girl  
_

She pulled away from my lips and looked at him standing behind her, bent over so that his elbows were on the bed. He smiled.

_Whatever happened  
To Tuesday and so slow  
Going down the old mine  
With a transistor radio  
Standing in the sunlight laughin'  
Hiding behind a rainbow's wall  
Slippin' and slidin'  
All along the water fall, with you  
My brown eyed girl  
You my brown eyed girl_

_Do you remember when we used to sing  
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da_

_Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da_

"Let's go, honey," Charlie broke off, taking her hand to help her sit up. I laid there stunned at how she had responded to his singing and how she hadn't responded to me. What had _I_ done?

Holding onto her tightly, he led her out the door with me following behind lost in my own thoughts. Dr. Cope walked next to me and was telling me things I probably should have been listening to, but I couldn't concentrate. Bella was hurting on the inside. Was it what happened last night? Was it her injuries? Was it me?

Stepping out into the bright light, a sun that seemed like it had been missing for an eternity, I squinted to shield my eyes and then crawled into the back of Charlie's police car behind her.

* * *

"How long has she been sleeping?" Alice asked, taking a bite of a piece of perfectly fried bacon from the plate that sat on the counter.

The house had become a gathering place for all of our friends and family since we'd come home from the hospital yesterday morning. They had all gone home last night around ten o'clock, but they'd been slowly filing back in since seven this morning, each and every one of them sporting matching dark circles under their eyes.

I glanced up at the clock and sighed. "She's going on twenty hours, but I don't want to wake her."

"This is her way of coping," my mother added, dropping another eight pieces of bacon onto the plate on top of the others. "Give Bella the time to process everything. Do you blame her for being in shock and maybe a little emotional pain? What she went through was traumatic, and coupled with her past, I'm quite surprised with how well she's dealing with everything. I don't believe she's going to get better immediately. No, I do believe she'll probably progress right along into the other stages of grief, but you're all now prepared for what may be ahead after our talk yesterday. She's resilient. You know she is. Your Bella will be back when she's ready."

I nodded silently hoping she was right. Bella hadn't really muttered a word since we'd gotten home, and it scared the hell out of me. None of us had anything to do besides sit around and watch television, but she was too quiet while sitting there with us, too withdrawn... too unlike her.

I'd stuck close by her side, ready for an angry breakdown at any moment because mom said that it was coming and it would probably come out of nowhere, but it never happened. Being unhappy that it hadn't happened seemed wrong, but I needed to hear something pass her lips. Anything at all.

After her hundredth yawn, I'd led her up to the bedroom and tucked her in with a kiss that I let linger. It was sweet. It was chaste. But it lingered because she needed to feel it after I'd gone back downstairs. I wanted to stay with her because I was afraid of the horrors that her dreams would bring, but she shook her head when I asked if that was what she wanted. So I left her alone. And here we were 20 hours later still plagued by her silence.

The front door opened again, and I heard Charlie welcome Angela and Ben inside.

Charlie had stayed last night in one of the guest rooms. When I woke up after my few hours of sleep only inches away from her still body, I found him downstairs in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. His eyes were ringed in red, and I knew he'd been crying. I was sure they looked like mine yesterday in the hospital room with her.

"Sleep good?" he'd asked roughly, placing the mug down on the counter with a small clink of the ceramic on the granite.

"Probably about as good as you," I answered.

"Best sleep of your life then, I reckon," he whispered, and I nodded. We stood there for a few minutes in silence, the only sounds being our breaths and the trickles from the creek. "Cup of coffee to keep you awake for the rest of the day?"

I wrinkled up my face a little having never really been a coffee drinker before.

"Come on," he snickered quietly. "I might not know how to cook at all, but as a cop I do two things better than anybody when it comes to food. I can pick out the tastiest donut in the case just by looking at them, and I can make a mean cup of coffee. Better than those Starbucks people over in Seattle even."

I laughed and took the mug he was now holding out in front of him filled with the steaming hot brown liquid and took a timid drink. I might not have wanted to be an actor anymore as a profession, but I would always have my acting skills. And I was damn happy of that.

"It's delicious," I smiled, making sure that he couldn't see the disgust that was itching to be written all over my face. When he turned around I gagged and high-tailed it to the bathroom to pour it down the drain. That may have been my biggest mistake, though, because here I stood again with my fourth brand new cup of Charlie's specialty sitting in front of me on the counter. My acting skills were too damn good. He'd been bragging all morning that he'd converted another non-coffee drinker to an addict. _Awesome._

Angela walked into the kitchen full of apologies again for not knowing about what happened until we were at the hospital, and I was grateful that both Alice and Rosalie were there to calm her down this time and not myself. Angela was a wonderful, caring person with a heart almost as big as Bella's, but the only woman I wanted to comfort and hug was upstairs. Alone.

"Don't think about it," my mother warned. I narrowed my eyes at her wondering how in the hell she could read what I was thinking. She tapped her temple with her finger. "Mother's intuition. I've known your next move since you were old enough to walk. Let her sleep. She'll come down soon."

"Do you know that because of mother's intuition, too?" I asked, smirking. It wasn't hard to see how much my mom loved Bella.

"Maybe I do," she smiled.

Emmett walked up next to me then and bumped into my shoulder which was sore from throwing punches, and I scoffed. "Dick, you know that hurts."

"Your brother's name is Emmett," mom disapproved.

"I changed it to Dick a long time ago, mother. It has a nice ring to it. Dick Cullen. Eight Inch Di-" and his hand covered my mouth before I could finish his full name.

"I just got off with the execs," he said, and then he shook his head and started laughing irritatedly when he felt my lips curl up into a smile behind his palm. "I just got off _the phone_ with the execs. There's not a whole lot we can do with your ugly face, so you've got the next week to heal. We think that by the time you're back in LA, the bruises and cut will be in good enough shape that we can cover it with makeup and continue filming."

It felt so good to smile and joke around a little bit. The events in our lives had taken away most of my carefree attitude, and while Bella still had a ways to go before she could laugh again, it felt like all of our troubles were behind us. We only had one way to go, and that was forward.

Yesterday had been difficult, yes, and the day before that was the most difficult to endure. But they were over, and we'd survived. I could have chosen to dwell on the past and how close we had come to losing our future, but I didn't want to because we _hadn't_ lost it. Why should I worry myself with the 'what if's' when the 'what happened' put me where I was today?

Standing in the kitchen, I was surrounded with the people we loved and that loved us, and life was teaming all around. Outside the windows in the green forest, in the water of the stream, in this very room and the living room, even upstairs in that bedroom. We laughed and smiled and cried and hugged, and it felt so good to be able to do all of it. Though demure, it was a celebration. It was a celebration of life, one that Bella had told me about the very first day we met.

Her fresh outlook was what had intrigued me and made her unforgettable. In a world where cynics and negativity ruled, she had chosen to be happy and see the beauty that was all around. I didn't know happy before her. I didn't see beauty before she stepped into my world. Now I did.

Smiling was beautiful. This life was beautiful. Our future was beautiful.

Bella was beautiful.

"Bella," I breathed, taking a step toward her as she stood quietly by the refrigerator. Nobody had heard her walk in. A chorus of her name rang through the kitchen, some bass and some soprano, all combining into the perfect melody.

"Do you want some breakfast, dear?" mom asked. "I'm frying the last of the bacon. The pancakes are in the warmer, and the eggs are on the table in the skillet I found under the counter."

"Why are you all still here?" Bella asked, disregarding her question.

Everyone looked around cautiously, not really sure how to answer. All of the good-natured fun had evaporated in an instant. She didn't seem particularly pleased to see any of us, and my heart clenched.

"For you," Alice whispered.

Bella's eyes narrowed. "For me? Do you think I'm too weak to be able to handle this?"

My eyes darted over to my mother, and she had stiffened in her place by the stove with the fork in her hand. My God, this was it.

"No, that's not it at all," Alice answered quickly, shaking her head. I wanted to stop her from continuing, but I couldn't speak. Bella was probably seconds from exploding, and the last person that deserved the brunt of it was Alice. "We just thought that...well...we love you and we..."

Throwing her hands up, Bella stopped her from continuing. "It's fine. Everybody eat your breakfast. I'm going to go take a shower."

She turned and made her way toward the stairs hastily, and my feet followed automatically. Not one time did she turn around as I followed her step for step all the way into the master bathroom.

"Are you going to get in the shower with me, too?" she asked bitterly, grabbing a new towel from the linen closet.

"I will only if you want me to," I answered, stunned by the tone in her voice. I had to remind myself that she was still hurting. What had been said to her and done to her was still a mystery to all of us, and we had to be supportive and compassionate until she was ready to share her pain. My mother had drilled this information into us all afternoon yesterday after she'd gone to bed.

"I don't want you to," she replied.

"Okay," I said quietly. "I'll be downstairs if you need me."

When she didn't say anything, I took a step back and closed the door. Instead of leaving, I stood outside as I listened to the rustling of her clothes dropping off her skin and falling to the floor and then the start of the water through the showerhead. I couldn't leave her even though she said she wanted me to. Sliding down the door with my back, I heard her unmistakable sobbing on the other side, reminiscent of our last day in Seattle.

"Please don't cry," I whispered too low for her to hear so that she didn't know I'd not left her alone. "I didn't want to disturb you this morning when I woke up, so I'll tell you now what you did yesterday that made me fall in love with you even more."

I paused and took a deep breath to try to hold off my own tears that were threatening once again to drop.

"You woke up, Bella. You woke up and you took a breath and your heart beat. It's the most important thing you've ever done and yet the most simple. I've never loved you more, and I don't know how this feeling can grow to be greater than it is right now. It seems impossible. You're an amazing woman, and I'll love you forever for giving me this gift of cherishing what's simple and good in life. Waking up is good. Oxygen is good. Love is good. The love that _we share_ is good. It's all I need, Bella. You're all I need."

With that, I stood up and slowly walked back downstairs.

The kitchen was empty, so I went into the dining room to find all of the women sitting around picking at the food on the table with their fingers. Alice had tears in her eyes, and I could tell everyone had lost their appetites.

"I didn't know what to say," Alice sniffled. "The other night could have been it. I love her. She's my sister in every way except for blood, and I could have lost her. It just feels right being here, near her, you know? I didn't explain that, and now she hates me."

"Oh, Alice," my mom sighed. "Bella does not hate you. I promise you that. She loves you as much as you love her, and right now she's just going through a tough time. She could have woken up yesterday and have been fine, but she didn't. Something is troubling her, and she's not ready to share with anybody. Have faith in her, and be there for her when she needs you. She _will_ need you."

"Where are the guys?" I asked, interrupting them so that they knew I was in the room and not eavesdropping.

"Out in the driveway," Rose answered quietly, and then she jumped up wide-eyed and quickly added, "But you shouldn't go out there."

I laughed darkly. "You really shouldn't have said that, Rose," and I turned around and walked out the front door. Jasper, Emmett, Ben, Charlie and my father stood at the back of Alice's car, which was next to the sedan that Marcus had been driving me around in, each with something in their hands. When they heard my feet on the gravel, they threw what they were looking at into the trunk and slammed it shut. Everybody was successful except for Ben. Bending down I picked up what had missed its hiding place.

"Ummm...Edward...hey," he stuttered apprehensively.

Seeing what it was, I said, "It's fine, Ben."

"We weren't reading them for entertainment," Emmett echoed Ben's uneasiness.

"I know you weren't."

Jasper took a deep breath. "Carlisle and I have been out all morning buying up every magazine in the area that has you two on the cover or in it, and that's pretty much all of them."

"You didn't have to do that," I whispered, flipping through the dozens of pages of photos and bold headlines. "But thank you."

"It's my duty as your father to protect you when I can," dad said, "And the shit they're saying on those pages is libelous."

"You think?" I sputtered, holding up the page I just flipped to that suggested I'd hit Bella and given her the bruise on her face.

Everyone grimaced and Charlie ripped the magazine out of my hand and tore it down the middle. "Bonfire material," he said. "Someday this will all be a distant memory, and we'll burn every single one of these in some sort of celebration."

I groaned up at the sky trying my best to hold in my hatred of all things celebrity before I demanded they show me the rest. The last thing I needed was more to tip me over the edge, but I had to know what we were dealing with and what Jane was trying to squash back in LA. When the lid reopened, about twenty magazines spilled out onto the driveway, and I had to take a deep breath so that I wouldn't drop trou and piss all over the nearly two foot deep hill of glossy paper and staples filling the trunk.

Headline after headline told a sordid tale of sex and cheating and death, none of them even close to the truth. And every intrusive photo was a heartbreaking reminder of our darkest hour.

I'd not realized how bad I was until I saw the photos. When I was being pushed on the stretcher through the masses of people, I couldn't tell if it was day or night. The flashes of the cameras weren't individual. Each and every one combined into one bright light that wouldn't turn off, and it was being directed right at me. When I saw her standing there, I thought she was an angel coming to watch over me. I was afraid to tear my eyes away because I was afraid that she'd evaporate. I'd already lost her once.

As I was pushed up into the ambulance, I lost sight of her for a few seconds, and I thought that was it. But then there she was again, speaking my name. Was I dying, too? Was she calling for me to go with her? I wanted to go. I would have followed her anywhere.

Though I wasn't exactly sure I was fighting for my life because I couldn't remember why I would have been fighting, I gave in. Letting a tear fall for my life, gone at the hands of someone else, I allowed her to come to me. She was in front of me and her beautiful voice was speaking to me, but I couldn't focus on anything but how I could feel her.

_I could feel her._

This had to be some sort of heaven.

When the angel took my hand and flattened it on her chest, I felt her heart beating below the material. I couldn't believe it. Her heart still beat in heaven. Shaking my head in disbelief, I looked down and closed my eyes and thanked whoever was listening for what I was given.

"Open your eyes and see me, Edward. I'm not dead. James didn't kill me. You didn't see what you thought you saw."

All blissful thoughts zeroed in on these sentences she said to me, and I popped my eyes open to look at her. _Why was the angel telling me this?_

"James is dead. Not me. The bullet was for him. My father killed him; he did not kill me."

_What? The bullet was for James? Not her?_

"I'm here," she whispered. The warmth of her fingers trailed down my chest leaving a scorching trail in its wake and came to rest over the beat of my own heart. _Warmth. Heartbeat. Could it be?_ "I'm here, Edward...and...I'm never leaving."

"Bella?" I whispered in complete shock. I'd said that to her before. _Was this real? Was she real? Was this a dream?_ Her tongue was dancing with mine and my fingers were grasping onto cotton and skin and long brown hair, and I could smell her skin and feel her heat against my chest.

"Is it real?" I asked. Before I got an answer, I was moving and she was behind me and I couldn't do anything but yell the question at her hoping that she could answer before she disappeared. But I never heard.

The whooshing of doors blew my hair around and what felt like dozens of people swirled around my body as I tried to sort out what the angel or my Bella was telling me, and I wanted to scream at them for taking her away from me. I needed to know.

_Is it real?_

_Is it real?_

_Is it real?_

And then I heard her. Her crying and screaming broke through the haze of voices and motion, and I knew the answer. It was instant. The sound of her pain was unmistakable, and it registered in my brain. She was real and she was hurting and she needed me.

"Edward?" I heard the familiar voice of my brother say next to me. "You still with us?"

The loud snapping of fingers in my face broke me out of my memory, and I shook my head to look around. I was standing in the driveway still, holding about five different magazines in my hands. We were the only two left out there.

"Good to see you've come back to Earth," he laughed. "Let's go inside. It's starting to rain."

Making our way into the living room, I plopped down on the sofa next to Jasper and Alice and stared at the television. Someone had put in _The Blind Side_, and everybody seemed to be wrapped up in the movie. Everybody but me.

Emmett had joined Rosalie on the loveseat, and they were snuggling together sharing private whispers and stolen glances. Jasper had Alice's legs in his lap, and as his left hand massaged her thigh, his right hand rested softly on her stomach. It was an odd position, but whatever. Angela was sitting in the chair to my left, while Ben sat between her legs on the floor so that she could scratch his head.

And then there was me. Alone.

It disgusted me that the thought even crossed my mind, but was this what Charlie felt like at every event that he was surrounded by happy couples? I looked around the room for him and realized that he wasn't anywhere to be seen, and then it dawned on me that the other happy couple in the group was also not in the room. Where were my parents?

Just then, someone tapped on my shoulder, and I turned around to see my father standing there.

"You want to come over here for a second?" he whispered, motioning his head toward the other end of the living room. Complying, and all together interested in what was going on, I followed him over.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Charlie got a call."

"Is it about Jake?" I asked quickly. He began to speak, but I cut him off. "It's about Seth, isn't it? I've been meaning to go back over to the hospital to see how he's doing, but I feel so wrong leaving Bella here. And I'm sure she'll want to go with me when she finds out because she really likes him, and she'll want to know that his surgery went fine."

Dad shook his head.

"No, son. Garrett is on his way over to get a statement from Bella."

My breath hitched in my throat.

"It's too soon," I breathed. "She's not ready." That was obvious. She was silent and sad and then angry and crying. How could a person with such unstable emotions be expected to deliver such a demanding thing?

He sighed. "Your mother and Charlie up there talking to her right now trying to figure out whether it is too early or not. Neither of them think it's wise to push her too far because she is fragile right now for whatever reason, but they're testing her first to see what she can take. Your mother can't discuss it with me since Bella is her patient, but I have done studies into her field being a medically inquisitive man. Bella is holding something in from everybody, and maybe this would help her get it out and heal."

I turned to go upstairs, and dad grabbed my upper arm before I could take one step away. His face was contorted. "Your mother asked that you stay downstairs while they were doing this. She knows how protective you are of her, and she doesn't want you to try to hinder their progress in any way."

Wrenching my arm out of his grasp, I glared at him. "What the fuck?" I snapped, completely confused. Emmett and Jasper both stood up from their seats and took a step toward me. "You're forbidding me from seeing the woman that I love when she might need me the most? You're _forbidding_ me?"

Dad put his hands up in the air to calm the situation. He wasn't going to fight me, and I didn't want to fight him, but he was not going to let me up there? "Nobody is forbidding you. Your mother is _asking_ you to do this for Bella and for her. Trust her. She loves Bella like she's her own daughter already."

I stared up at the top of the stairs and warred with myself. If I wanted to, I could go up there. And, Jesus, I wanted to. But, did I have to put my trust in my mom to do what was best for her right now? Nothing I seemed to be doing was right. I couldn't hold her the right way. I couldn't say the right things. My presence didn't seem to calm her at all.

"Trust Charlie if you can't trust your mother," dad begged, and I turned back to him. "This situation is screwed up, Edward. I know that. We all know that. But you've got to know that Charlie loves his daughter. That man shot and killed a man to save her life. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but he's talking to Esme, too. He's not exactly taking the fact that he took a human life too lightly, but he did tell me as a father to father thing that he'd do it every day if he had to to keep her safe."

I blinked, not quite sure what to say. Maybe that's why he was up early this morning. Maybe we were all a little fucked up in our own way.

"Edward, stop fighting your dad," I heard quietly behind me. Dad's eyes flickered from mine to someone over my shoulder, and I turned around to see Bella standing barefoot between my mom and Charlie. She had no makeup on which only highlighted the redness of her nose and eyes, and her hair was tangled and damp from her shower. The clothes she wore hung off her body in a way that made her look gaunt and sick. Had it only been a little over a day since the incident? It was like I didn't know who this woman was in front of me. I was frightened for her.

With a stronger, even voice, she stood up straight and spoke again.

"Is Garrett here, yet? I'm ready to give my statement."

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**AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

So, anybody a little frightened for Bella, too? We're on the outside looking in. We don't know what's going through her mind. Leave me a review telling me what you think is going on!

I've been asked quite a bit lately how many more chapters there are going to be. Currently, I'm not sure. Roughly another eight to ten? I've got an outline, but sometimes chapters take on a mind of their own, and certain dialogue aids in blossoming whole chapters that weren't planned. This is an example of that. Chapter 24, 25 and the upcoming 26 were outlined as one chapter, but here they are as three. So, you've got me for another few months Hope you don't mind. :)

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
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**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	26. Chapter 26 On the Outside Looking In

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language**, violence, lemons

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Please forgive me for the three week break again. A few of you know, but a close family member of mine has been having health issues, and I've gotten to know the emergency room staff pretty well over the past three weeks. I know their first, middle and last names as well as their birthdays and shoe size. One kind girl even invited me to her wedding. Okay, that part is a lie. Anyways, I hope you can accept my apologies for the delay. I wish it could have been avoided, trust me. It sucks :(

Okay, on to happy news. Eclipse comes out** TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT!** YAY! Hope you enjoy(ed) it. I'm sure we all will from the sounds of it. And hopefully there's some nice making out and leg hitchin' to satisfy our perviness.

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When we left off last chapter, Bella had come downstairs and was preparing to give her statement to Garrett who was on his way over. Edward was _not_ okay with this.

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**Chapter 26**

**On the Outside Looking In**

How could _she_ be ready for this? _I_ wasn't ready for this. What they wanted her to do, what she said she was ready for, was going to hurt.

Why couldn't this wait another day? Another week? Why did this have to happen at all?

I wished there was a way I could do it for her. I mean, wasn't it enough that she had to experience the anguish once? No, I guess not. The victim was the victim time and time again, never allowed to move on until every word and every strike was burned so sharply into their mind that they couldn't forget even if that was what they desired or begged for down on their knees.

Everybody but my dad and Jasper had witnessed her resentfulness in the kitchen, but nobody had heard her crying in the shower like I had. Behind that anger was a deep sadness that she was hiding, and she needed to be given the time to reason with it.

Each and every one of us were on the outside looking in at a person that had tragedy plague her life. Alice, Rosalie, Angela, Jasper, Emmett, Ben, Charlie, Carlisle, Esme, and the entire towns of Forks and La Push – they all knew of the tragedy – but none of them knew the tragedy like I did. I had lived it through her eyes and her tears and her shudders. For whatever reason, she had told me everything.

And that's why I wondered if fate was actually real. Sitting at the dining room table eating macaroni and cheese the first time, I had relied on this supposed force or destiny, however hokey that word was, to guide me in finding out why I was so drawn to her like a magnet. It didn't frighten me because it felt so right. Even saying the words 'I love you' didn't frighten me. Was it supposed to?

Thirty hours had turned my life upside down taking me from an embittered, anxious boy to a man that worried about nothing but the woman that had captured his heart.

Where would we be if we hadn't turned that spark between our hearts into the roaring fire it was today? What about if we hadn't shared our pasts and troubles, silently asking for the help that we needed? There was no telling if James and Marcus would have gone through with their plans for me when I finally lost the strength to handle the pressure on my own. On the other end, would Jake have still taken it to the extent he did? Would he have hurt her? Would he have killed her eventually?

I groaned and pulled at the roots of my hair with my fists. There were so many uncertainties in this world. Heaven and Hell. God and Satan. Fate and coincidence. I had seen and lived through them all, but I still didn't have the definitive answer. Nobody did.

Maybe there wasn't a place above and below inviting me to enter their gates when my time had come, but I had lived in both while on this Earth. Maybe there wasn't someone above and below pushing me to make choices that affected the rest of my life, but I had begged both at one time to take me with them. I didn't need to know the truths of these uncertainties because I truly wasn't _ready_ to know.

What about fate and coincidence, though? Maybe coincidence was the reason why I was here in this town, in this house, sitting before this woman, but I wanted to believe in something stronger. I_ needed_ to because nothing else made sense. If I could assign that one thing to a higher power, then I would. I needed her and she needed me and if fate, designed by some god or the stars, was what brought us together, then I was grateful to them.

Bella had been what I needed to be happy in this life, and looking at her perched on the couch across from me, pain etched behind the thin veil she had put up in her eyes, I knew that I was what she needed to be happy, as well.

I had to heal whatever wounds giving her statement to the police would cut open because that was why I was here. I was the only one that could heal her and make her whole because I was the only one that knew her and understood what she was going through.

Reliving the events that had happened in the bookstore before the police got there was very difficult for me, especially when all of the pain was still so fresh and sensitive in my mind. Charlie, Garrett, Emmett and my parents had surrounded my hospital bed as I told them everything I could remember or piece together from the very beginning with Tanya up until I passed out on top of Bella on the floor.

There were numerous holes to the story without her account of the bookstore, though. The surveillance footage had been confiscated into evidence, but there was no audio.

What happened before I got there? Why had it happened?

Only Bella knew how to answer those questions. She was the only one left that could still tell us the truth reliably because Marcus and James were dead and Jake was under arrest for murder.

"Do you want this to be private?" Garrett asked, darting his eyes around the room to everybody as they sat in their seats nervously, ringing their hands in their laps or fidgeting with something on their clothes. I understood why they would want to hear what had happened. Each of them loved Bella in their own way and wanted to be there for her, but it didn't stop my concern from growing. Her statement was becoming a spectacle, something to gawk at.

I was about to speak up and say that they all needed to go when Bella jumped in before I could even open my mouth.

"They can stay. They'll all know eventually anyways. Might as well kill two birds with one stone."

I saw the shudder ripple through her body as the words she spoke transformed in her mind into something much deeper. Kill two birds? Kill two...people. My God. Why the fuck was she doing this?

"Bella," I protested. "This is incredibly early. We can put this off for a while longer. They already took my statement, and I think that Seth-"

"Seth?" she interrupted, her head snapping to me instead of toward the floor. "What about Seth?"

I swallowed thickly. I knew she always liked him from the very beginning though it took some time for me to warm up to him. Well, it wasn't so much that I needed to warm up to him as it was he needed to prove to me that I could trust him. And in the end I did.

"He was who came into the bookstore with me when Jake-"

"No!" she gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth. "It was him? Is he dead? He's dead, isn't he? I knew it."

The tears were already spilling from her eyes as these words tumbled from her mouth on repeat, and I didn't care about the facade she had in place before. This was vulnerable Bella. I was on the floor in front of her in a second with my hands cupping her face.

"No, baby," I whispered. "He got hurt, but he's going to be okay. I spoke with him briefly on the phone after you went to sleep yesterday. He sounded like he was in a good mood – almost a little proud of himself."

"What happened?" she sniffled, staring me straight in the eyes through the glossy pools of tears.

I sighed. This was going to start it off. I didn't know where this would lead, but I knew there was no stopping her telling us everything now that we were talking about Seth.

"Because of him," I whispered, using my finger to wipe the wet trails off of her cheeks, "I found you."

Her eyes filled with question, and I stood up and stepped back toward my chair. Pulling it forward so that I was within reach of her, I sat down so that I could elaborate.

"He heard James talking on the phone with Marcus while you were all in Port Angeles, and he stopped me later in the day when I got out of an interview at the hotel to tell me. I didn't know where to find you after the information he gave me, but all I could think about was starting at the house. That's where you were the first time you went missing, and it's where you were in your dream about your dad. If it hadn't been for the chandelier..." I paused to take a shaky breath because the thought of the 'what if's' that I'd been so good to not think about were beginning their assault on me again.

"If it hadn't been for the chandelier being off at the bookstore when we drove by, something I know you never turn off and something that was on earlier when I went by, I might not have gotten to you in time. They might have killed you."

Charlie winced at my words.

"Seth helped me get inside when I saw the... the gun... pointed at you... and when I was trying to turn on the lights, Jake tackled me to the ground. We both landed right on top of Seth. Our weight plus the force that Jake put behind it caused two fractured vertebrae, a compound fracture in his arm and it knocked him out.

Her eyes widened, so I quickly finished what happened so she knew he was going to recover.

"He's not paralyzed. His spinal cord wasn't damaged, Bella. That didn't even require surgery. He'll have to wear a back brace for at least 12 weeks and a cast on his arm for at least six weeks because of that surgery, but the prognosis is good. He'll have to go through physical therapy, but as I said before, he's proud of what he did. He kept saying, 'totally worth it.'"

It wasn't like I expected her to be cheering when I'd given her the news, but I had expected her to look a little more relieved. That was definitely not the case, though. I'd hated seeing her so defiant against her own emotions, but I also hated seeing her sunken into herself and tiny like she was now. I had to make a final plea against what was ahead. This wasn't right – at least not right now.

"Baby, don't do this yet. Please wait."

"No," she whispered, reflecting my own pain in her eyes. "I'm a strong person, Edward. You may always feel the need to protect me, but you don't have to this time."

Blinking, my mouth popped open in surprise.

"I never thought you were weak." The sting of her words had pierced through my chest, but I was trying to ignore it. "You're the strongest person I know, and I protect you because it's my job to protect you as both your boyfriend and the person responsible for bringing the threat into your life."

An agonized expression briefly flashed across her face, but she softened it as she stared into my eyes.

"This needs to be done, Edward. You can't stop this. We couldn't stop any of it no matter how hard we tried."

I groaned again and buried my face in my hands.

"Are you ready, Bella?" Garrett asked. I heard the click of him pressing the button on the recorder and the rustle of paper as he pulled out his notebook, and it took all of my strength not to storm out of the room in anger and failure. Because she was right. I couldn't stop this.

"I'm going to start with the main question that we need answered and we'll go from there," he said.

"Okay," Bella said quietly.

"Why were you in the bookstore Friday evening?"

Still not looking, I heard her take a deep breath and begin with what I already knew to be true because of what Seth had overheard but what I had not heard her say.

"I thought they were going to kill my dad," she croaked.

"They?"

"James and Jake. I was in Port Angeles with the Alice, Rosalie and Angela, and I got a phone call in the car from James."

"And James was who exactly?"

"Angry paparazzi," Charlie muttered, shooting me a brief glare out of the corner of his eye.

I deserved it. If I hadn't have waited to say something, if I hadn't been selfish enough to care about my career more than anything else for so long, this wouldn't have happened. _So glare away, Charlie._ I'd spent plenty of time in front of a mirror doing the same thing.

"James said that he had dad at gunpoint just like in my dream. I couldn't let him die. I had to save him."

I heard Charlie groan, and I looked over to see him sitting next to her in a similar stance to mine just before – leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his face pressed into his palms in disbelief.

"Why would they have the Chief held hostage?" Garrett asked, looking confused. "What did you have that they wanted?"

Bella's eyes widened as her head flew from side to side. "No," she whimpered. "Not yet. I can't. Not yet, please. Not that question."

I about stood up and ordered everyone to leave, but Garrett moved the questioning along though I didn't want him to. Why was she so adamant against answering that question?

"We'll save that question for another time," he smiled. "You said you were in the car. Who was driving?"

"Marcus," she answered, relieved to go in a different direction.

"Can you tell me what role he played in the events that transpired Friday evening and why he was in your shop?"

She turned her gaze to mine. It was a worn and tired gaze. "He was the mastermind of it all from the very beginning."

The room had gone peacefully quiet in the moments before she said that. We had been the only two people in there. Her eyes had locked with mine and mine with hers, and I was not quite blissfully unaware, but unaware at least, that everything I had ever known about the man was a lie. He had been involved. That much I knew. But I didn't know that he had been behind it all until she said the words.

"Why?" I breathed, hearing the questions start screaming in my brain. Was this finally going to tell me why he was always in such a foul mood? Why would he do this to me? To us?

"He hated you, Edward," she answered sadly. "When you and Tanya were-" and she cut off to look over at my parents.

"Go on," my mother smiled warmly. "All the unflattering details are out in the open already, and that hasn't stopped us from loving our son. Nothing will change that."

Bella nodded and went on. "When you and Tanya were _together_ one night at her house," she said, still downplaying what we were actually doing _together_, "James showed up unexpectedly a little early and Marcus told him everything about what you had been doing."

"Why would he do that?" Emmett asked, sitting forward.

When she hesitated, I decided maybe I should be the one to assure her it was okay to say whatever it was she needed. As with Bella, my parents knew everything now. I'd told her every indiscretion that night in the dining room, and I told them everything that night in the hospital. Coming clean was all a part of the statement process, but I needed to purge the words from my body to feel like I could move on from all of this. Maybe it still didn't make any of it right, but for so long I had wanted someone outside the circle to know.

And I needed to know what she was not saying.

"Please tell me," I begged. "I've always needed to know why Marcus was the way he was."

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and I was now worried that I was the one that was pushing her too far when I should be protecting her. "He...uhhh...he said that it was really starting to wear on him that you would pay him extra to keep his mouth shut and not tell James and to drive you to her house every night and wait outside until you were done."

I felt my body begin to vibrate as word after word spilled from her in a rush. Word after word. Lie after lie... Lie after lie that she believed.

"He also said that you had sex with her in the back of the sedan one time while he drove."

"No!" I yelled, jumping from my seat and startling everybody in the room. My feet controlled me as I paced in front of her on the couch, lost in my own whirlwind of confusion. "Never. I never did any of those things. Bella, you've got to believe me."

I dropped to my knees in front of her and brought my face to within inches of hers. "I can see it in your eyes that you believe him. You can't. I never paid him extra money for that. If he drove me over there, I never asked him to stay. I never told him to not tell anybody, and I never ever had sex in the car with her."

Her eyebrows scrunched together. Was this why she was so upset? Was she disgusted so much by what he had said that she was distancing herself from me because of her shame and disappointment? I couldn't let her do that. She had to know that he was lying.

"I was wrong with what I was doing, but I would never have dragged someone else into that situation. Please believe me," I begged, grasping onto her hands and holding onto them between mine like a prayer. "Please, Bella."

It was minute, but I saw Bella nod her head and the intense stress began to dissolve in my body. That one instant of doubt where I thought she had lost even the smallest ounce of love for me was enough to make me feel like I had been gutted and my heart had been ravaged.

Emotions such as these were foreign. For so long the only threat was from the outside of our bubble, coming at us from all sides. Now that those threats had been eliminated, the threat could only come from one side, and that was from each other. The only person that could hurt me was Bella, and the pain that I had just felt was unlike any pain that I had gone through before. I did not want to feel that again.

"If all of that is a lie, then why?" Jasper asked. "None of it makes sense. There's no rhyme or reason for him to hate you."

The room was quiet as we all got lost in thought. Jasper was right. It made no sense whatsoever, and it wasn't like we could interrogate Marcus. He was dead. Did the truth die with him?

"He was jealous of you and wanted what you had," Bella whispered, bringing us out of our own heads. Her voice was so quiet, that it wouldn't have been heard if we'd have been talking.

"What do you mean?" Garrett asked.

Her eyes never left mine. "Money. Sex. Your happiness. Me. He manipulated everybody to get it. He was trying to get me to hate you as one last accomplishment. James and Jake were his victims, too. They told me that they were going to run to Canada after they killed me, and when Marcus said he wasn't going with them, their bond started to unravel. The truth had come out."

"Did he say why he wasn't running?" Carlisle asked.

She nodded. "He was going to stay behind and continue his torture of Edward. He had already taken so much of your happiness away, and he was going to continue his game because he knew you would blame yourself for my death and he even said he might kill you eventually because nobody would know he was involved."

"But what about the security camera? We have footage of Marcus there. That would be all the evidence we would have needed," Charlie added.

"I...I don't know," she stuttered. "When he was saying all of this to me, standing so close, breathing on my neck, I didn't think about the camera. It's possible that none of them knew there was one. They may have only known about the security at the house."

"That was something I never mentioned to him," I added. "He only knew of the camera in the tree."

It was all starting to come together. When I had watched the footage of Jake breaking into the house the morning he destroyed the bedroom, I had noticed that it looked like Jake had winked at the camera, but I didn't know how he had known about it. Marcus was how. The wink was a smack in the face. It was a clue. And I'd been too blind to figure it out.

"James was irate with what Marcus was saying," Bella continued, "but Jake was so calm. He was holding in his anger. I know that now. The storm was brewing under his skin, his blood boiling, and as soon as Marcus leaned over my shoulder and said that he was going to rape me because he always wanted to have the women that you got to sleep with...I heard the gun go off."

Bella's eyes closed as a tremble traveled like a wave over her body, and I instantly became terrified. If I could have asked the question, I would have, but I couldn't. There was no way I could even say the words as I would have vomited as soon as I did.

"Did any of them _touch_ you...or...rape you at any time during the night?" Rosalie asked for me in the smallest, most scared voice I'd ever heard her mutter. The second that lapsed between Rosalie's question and Bella's answer seemed to stretch on for an eternity as we waited.

_Please say no, baby._

"No," she whispered. "They didn't get the chance."

I crawled back up into the chair and sunk into the cushions wanting them to swallow me up and take me to another time when I didn't have to think about things like this. What would have happened if Jake hadn't killed Marcus? What if his aim was off and he had hit Bella instead? If any of them had either touched her or raped her, would I have been able to help her? Would her trust in men have been shattered?

Was she telling us the truth?

Every part of my body felt like it was choking as my muscles tensed. I was terrified that Bella was lying, but I had to have faith in Garrett and Charlie that they would have seen it in the video if it had happened. They didn't seem to be concerned, so I tried to relax.

"You confirm that Jake shot Marcus," Garrett said. "What else can you tell us about Jake?"

She nodded her head shakily, and looked down at her lap.

"Where James blamed all of his problems on Edward, the blame was on me for Jake's problems," she sniffled.

The room erupted into a twisted ball of profanities and raised voices.

"Where does he get the nerve?" Alice asked, her voice laced with incredulity.

"He makes me sick," Angela added.

"That dickhead cheated on _you!_ Not the other way around!" Rosalie exclaimed.

"Shut up," someone whispered.

"I know a guy from the Army, Charlie. You wouldn't even have to tell the police officer at the door to go on break. In and out of the air vent in one minute flat."

"You better hope nothing like that happens, Jasper," Charlie warned sternly, cocking his eyebrow and pointing at the voice recorder.

"Shut up."

Protective Emmett decided to interject. "No need for those Mission: Impossible shenanigans. Just let me get my hands on him, and I'll snap him like a fucking twig in thirty seconds flat. Do you hear that voice recorder listener man?" He leaned forward and finally got the fist bump from Jasper that he'd been trying to get for months.

"SHUT UP!"

All of our heads snapped toward the strangled shriek in the room and our eyes fell upon Bella standing from her position on the sofa. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, her body shook with the force of an earthquake and her face bore the darkest shade of red that almost resembled the purple of her bruises.

"Just shut up!" she screamed again. "Stop talking about Jake like that! He doesn't deserve any of it!"

"Like hell he doesn't," I sputtered in complete shock of why she would be defending him after everything he'd done or had planned on doing to her.

She shifted her glare to me. "He loved me," she growled, sending me cowering into my chair.

"No, he didn't," Alice jumped up, taking a step toward Bella. "It was a one-way street in that relationship from the very beginning. All you ever did was love him with everything inside of you, and he used that until he was done with it and threw it away without a second thought."

"I could have loved him better," Bella's whimpered. The red was draining from her face leaving behind a pale complexion void of any color. "There were so many things I didn't see or know or do that I could have. It was like I ignored everything he was begging me for."

A pressure unlike any other was building in my chest as I heard this broken voice spill out of her mouth as she spoke about the love that she and Jake shared, or rather the love that she still could have shared with him.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Rosalie scoffed. "All of us saw how much effort you put into him and your life together. You two shared a connection that none of the rest of us could ever fully understand, and that wasn't because we didn't want to. It was because we couldn't. Your mothers' deaths," she paused briefly when Bella reacted to the mention, "created this bubble around you and Jake and brought you together, and you both helped each other move on when the rest of us could only support you from the outside."

Bella's mood shifted, and she started to laugh hysterically when Rosalie was finished. We all looked around uncomfortably while she grabbed her stomach and gasped dramatically for air. I caught my mother scrutinizing Bella's questionable behavior, but when I went to take a step toward her laughing form, doubled over in front of the couch, my mother held up her hands as a warning to wait.

"Garrett, I think we're done for the day," Charlie stated irritatedly, reaching unsuccessfully for Bella's upper arm as she stepped away from his hand.

"No, stay!" Bella squealed, stumbling towards one set of bookshelves where dozens of dust-free picture frames rested peacefully in their places emitting love and happiness, a sharp contrast to the goings-on in the room at the present. "Things are just about to get interesting!"

Her hands grabbed three frames off the shelf at eye-level and she turned around to show them to us. "Five years ago," she said. "Twenty-first birthday. Great time, right? Wrong. I bawled myself to sleep that night because my mother wasn't there to hold my hair back as I threw up all my bad decisions."

She turned the next frame toward us. "Four years ago. Bonfire announcing the publishing of my fifth children's book. Quite the accomplishment for being so young. I should have been happy, shouldn't I have been? Wrong, again. I spent the next morning reading it to mom at her grave while I cried and told her that I missed having her around to share it with me."

Flipping the last one around, she held it up. "Two years ago. Engagement party. Laughter. Dancing. Hugs. Kisses. Blessings of a beautiful life together... Sham." Lifting her arms above her head, gripping the three frames tightly in her clutches, she swung them down toward the floor and released the frames so they shattered on the hardwoods. The glass protecting the smiles trapped in time sprayed across the room, sending us scattering to dodge the tiny shards.

Not wasting any time, she spun back around and swept all of the frames on the remaining five shelves to the floor in quick succession with her arms before moving to the shelves on the other side of the television, each and every one of those pictures and memories breaking in the same fashion.

"Lies," she repeated over and over as one after the other frame dropped with the gravity. These were the only words uttered in the room as we silently watched what was unfolding in front of our eyes. "All lies. I was never happy. Jake was never happy. Neither of us had moved on. He thought I'd moved on without him, leaving him behind to put the pieces of his life back together on his own. I thought he was better and didn't need me anymore. All lies. I broke him."

"Can you try to sit back down and explain to me what you mean?" my mother finally spoke up, her natural inclination to her profession kicking in and telling her to do something. "We'll have everybody leave, and it can be just the two of us."

"No," Bella answered swiftly. "These people are my closest friends, and they have to know the truth. They have to know what I've done."

"What you've _done?_" Charlie asked, _his_ profession kicking in. Grabbing the voice recorder quickly, he clicked the stop button and simultaneously pulled the batteries out of the back. "What did you _do_, Isabella?"

She came to an abrupt standstill when she heard her father's interrogating tone. As she stood by the windows, staring out into the forest behind the house with her back to us as we stood in a united group in the middle of the room, I watched her rigid posture begin to sag until her shoulders were slumped forward and her head hung down.

I didn't need to see her back shaking or see her hands come up to her face to know that she was crying. We could all hear it as she allowed whatever it was that was making her act this way pull her down out of her haze.

"Baby," I whispered, taking a step in her direction. "Please try to calm down. Let us help you." I wasn't sure what to do or say. What had just happened? The last five minutes were a blur of chaos and confusion. From the looks of things, she was being pulled in ten different directions by anger and sadness and guilt and a myriad of other emotions that were mixing into one crazed mess, and I wasn't sure what she needed from me to make it all better.

Looking over my shoulder at my mother, I plead with my eyes for her to tell me what to do. This was what she did every day. She helped people find the way out of whatever personal hell they had found themselves in.

With a motion of her hand, my mom encouraged me to keep going – to try talking to her. Returning my eyes to the woman that had stolen my heart, I felt it breaking on the inside of her. "Bella, we love you. Every one of us. We want to help you, but you've got to tell us what you meant when you said you had to tell us what you did."

With a loud sob that ripped out of her chest, she turned around slowly so that she could look at all of us through her bloodshot eyes and waterfall of tears.

"Why are we celebrating life all of the time when so many bad things have happened to all of us?" she cried. The red on her cheeks was darkened with the water, and her hair hung limply, stuck to her neck. The palms of her hands faced forward down at her sides like she was open and bare to us and not able to fight anymore.

"It all started with mom. She was doomed because of me. The same goes for all of you. Your number was up the first day I met you. Because of me, because of your connection with me, your lives have been filled with pain and agony. I'm so sorry. Everything that has happened to you is all my fault."

Several gasps were heard behind me.

"Jasper," she lazily waved her hand at him like her arm weighed a hundred pounds. "Every day you and Alice wake up and see the scars that cover your body and are reminded of the explosion and the day you almost died. I've seen her touch and kiss the scars on your chest, and I hate the fact that I cursed you to a lifetime of reminders of that horrible day."

The room broke out into an uproar with everyone trying to talk some sense into her.

"That's ridiculous!" Jasper yelled above all of them. "I'm the one who made the decision to go to war. You didn't make that decision for me."

Bella completely ignored him and went on.

"Rosalie and Emmett, you may never get to have children, and you deserve them. My God, you deserve them. You have both loved and protected me when you didn't have to, and I cannot even fathom how comforted a child of yours would feel."

Rosalie stood there dumbfounded at Bella's words, but Angela decided to contradict her.

"What about us, Bella? Where does your theory fit in with Ben and me? Neither of us have had something painful to endure."

"That doesn't mean you won't," Bella whispered, her eyes confeying apology.

"You're right. It doesn't," Angela almost said angrily. "But that's a part of life. There are always going to be the ups and downs and the good, the bad and the very bad, but they aren't your fault. That's what happens. Shit. Shit happens. Nobody's life is easy or perfect."

Bella's hands were over her ears and she was mumbling quickly trying to drown out Angela's points as if they weren't the truth.

"Seth's life was easy and perfect until he met me in Los Angeles, and then he lost his job and now he's in a hospital bed all because of me. Then Marcus and James died, and Jake is damned to hell no matter if his heart is beating or not. All because of me."

Her logic was insane as she went down the list.

"Dad, you lost your wife and your mother in the same year. After mom died, I couldn't lose you. I had to do what I could to keep you happy. It was all my idea, and it fucked Jake up in the process. We're both so fucked up because of it, and we're fucking up everybody else."

Charlie's eyes started to well up with tears that he was desperately trying to hold back. I knew that she was only skimming the surface on her father's issues, but I knew she wouldn't bring them up here because she loved him too much. There was no way she could drop a bomb so huge as what she did to protect him without her actions ruining him.

"Carlisle and Esme, you lost your baby girl, and because of me, you could have lost a son. I tried so hard not to let that happen. I tried everything to keep him safe."

Like all of her strength had been taken away from her, she fell roughly to her knees and crouched into a ball on the floor as she rocked back and forth wailing.

"I was supposed to die! That was the plan! And, I didn't, but it still broke you, Edward! It still broke you!"

Was this some sick nightmare that I was having? I needed to wake up. The screaming needed to stop.

"It didn't happen the way I'd planned! They found out before I could do it, but I had to save my dad!"

"What?" I breathed, dropping down in front of her body. Her arms were wrapped around her torso, and her fingers dug into her sides so fiercely that her knuckles had turned an icy white.

"When he wasn't there, I knew I could still save you. You would know it was them."

"Know it was them, what?" I asked, my voice quivering, my nightmare not stopping.

Out of nowhere, her body began convulsing violently, and I pulled her into lap out of pure necessity of holding her together. She was falling apart, losing the color in her skin and the melody of her voice. Where had her happiness gone and the energy of her every move? Where was my Bella?

Her hands twisted in my shirt as she dug her face into my shoulder. "You would know it was them when they killed me... when I sacrificed myself... to save... you."

_Tick. Tick. Tick._ The clock ticked on the wall indicating the passing seconds, but time seemed to be standing still as my mind slowly processed the words she said into a sentence that made any kind of sense. _No._ She didn't say what I thought she said.

"I had known what I had to do since you found me on the floor in the library with the pictures. Marcus found out that I was going to tell dad everything when we got back from Seattle, and they tried to ruin it, but it didn't matter. Whether I had turned myself over to them in sacrifice or not, I was still going to die, and they were going to be hunted until they were found and arrested. You would have been able to go on with your life and be safe and happy."

As if I had been burned, I pushed her off of me and scooted away as quickly as I could along the floor. Anger, love, despair, confusion, devotion and hatred coursed through my veins, and the words began to spill out of me without any thought or consideration.

"You thought I would be happy without you?" I yelled. She flinched at my volume and diverted her eyes to the floor that she was balled up on. "Did you really think I would be grateful to you for essentially committing suicide to save my life?"

It was all making sense now. She had begged James to shoot her countless times as he held the gun to her head. When the gun had been pointed at me, she had grabbed it and held it to her temple herself while it was still in his hands. My breath was coming out in short bursts as I glared over at her trembling body, and when she nodded her head to confirm every fear, I lost the last remaining amount of decency I had inside of me.

"I wouldn't have been happy!" I growled ferociously. "I wouldn't have been grateful!"

I paused to take a deep breath so I could try to control myself, but I couldn't find it in me to care anymore. The pain she was willing to inflict on me after everything I had done for her was too much to bear. She had to know what she would have done to me. She had to know that I would have been ruined.

"How could you have been so fucking selfish and stupid? I would have _hated_ you, Bella!" I spat.

The venom that I heard come out of my own mouth, directed at the love of my life, the woman that I would have done the exact same thing for that she tried to do for me, knocked the air out of my lungs. I blanched as if I'd been slapped across the face. _What the hell am I saying? _

Gasps from the room brought me back into the reality that we were not alone in our hell.

"I did not raise you to say things like that," my mother reproached.

"Don't you dare talk to my daughter like that again!" Charlie seethed.

"Edward, come on, man. That's enough," Emmett disapproved.

"No, he _should_ hate me," Bella whimpered, looking up at them with a face of someone that was exhausted. "You all should after everything I've done to you."

A noise that sounded like a strangle came out of my throat. "No, baby. Oh God. I love you, Bella. I could never hate you no matter what. Please forgive me for saying that. I don't know how not to love you."

She was scooting away from me and my outstretched hands using her palms and the heels of her feet as I begged her to realize that what I had said was the farthest thing from the truth.

"Don't love me," she cried. "I'm nothing to love. I've hurt you all too much. You have to leave and never look back. All of you. Please get as far away from me as you can."

"Go!" I ordered, turning my head to see all of them with wide eyes. I knew they never should have been here to begin with. Their presence only escalated what had happened and put a strain on her emotions and mine. Each of their comments, including my own, had fanned the flames, sending Bella spiraling into the state she was in. Someone needed to bring her back, make her realize that she was terribly wrong, and that person was me and only me despite what I had just done to set her back.

A cold breeze of air hit the back of my neck, making the thin hairs stand on end, and I snapped my head around to see the door wide open and Bella's hair blowing behind her as she jumped off the deck and ran toward the forest.

I was up and running after her, yelling that they all needed to be gone when we returned to the house, before I even knew what I was doing. Memories of that night on the beach flashed through my mind as I chased after her. Just as she did that horrific night, she ran with more strength and agility as I thought was possible.

"Bella!" I shouted as she jumped over the creek and cleared it by a good distance on the other side. Patches of dark red blood and dirt coated the underneath side of her bare feet as she dodged and leaped over rocks, ferns and tree roots.

"Slow down!" I yelled. "Be careful!"

"You have to leave me!" she sobbed. "I'm not worth it!"

"That's not true!"

"Why would you want to be with someone like me?"

"Don't you get it? You're everything to me, Bella! Why can you not see that after everything we've been through? I'm not leaving you!"

Like my senses were heightened as I ran, every obstacle was a mere blip as I maneuvered around them, intent on getting to her before she seriously hurt herself. I didn't know if it was the blinding tears or fatigue that was slowing her, but I kept pressing on, hoping that she would give up. She had to give up eventually because I never would.

"You _have_ to leave!" She was no more than five feet in front of me now.

"No, I do not! I refuse to ever leave your side again!"

"You can't say that!"

"Bella, I qu-!" My heart stopped just as I was shouting this when I saw her foot snag a fallen tree. Her body angled forward and her arms lunged out in front of her to catch her fall, but by some miracle of miracles, I was close enough to catch her this time. This time, she would not feel the pain.

"I've got you, Bella," I panted into her hair, stumbling in my effort to keep us upright. "I won't let go of you. Ever."

With my arms wrapped securely around her shoulders, her body went limp as I held onto her from behind. I knew that she had given up.

The newly startled animals of the forest were silent in their hiding places as we stood there in the enchanting kingdom of emerald green and coffee brown trying to drag the cold air into our burning lungs. Adrenaline from the run and the fight was all that was keeping me on my feet as I crushed her against my heaving chest.

"Stop running. Stop hiding. Stop fighting," I panted. "Nothing you do or say can make me leave you. Good God, Bella, I called Jane yesterday and told her I was quitting. I fucking quit. That's why I'm never leaving you. Don't you understand? You are all I want and need in this life."

For so long I'd wanted to tell her, but no time ever seemed right...until now. Here we were, standing alone in the infinite quiet, free of outside danger and interruptions. She was begging me to abandon her when we needed each other the most, and I wouldn't – I couldn't. My mind was made up the moment I met her. Fate had brought us together, and I couldn't let anything, not even Bella, tear us apart.

After several seconds of no response, I turned her around so that she was facing me, and I saw that her eyes were closed and her chin was quivering. "You can't," she choked.

"I already did, Bella. I want you to come to LA with me for the next month to finish up my final commitment, but then we're coming home. Forks is home now. _You_ are home. "

Her head was shaking from side to side swiftly as she squeezed her eyes shut. "Don't make me do this."

"Don't make you do what?" I asked, my voice strained. Despite the nearly freezing temperatures, sweat dotted her forehead, and I pulled her closer to keep her warm.

"You can't quit," she whimpered.

"It's the only way I'll be happy. All I've ever wanted was to be happy."

A strange noise came out of her mouth, and she pushed away from me. Though her legs were shaking violently, she was able to hold herself up without falling.

"I _have_ broken you," she cried, covering her face with her hands. "Don't make me do this."

"_What are you talking about?"_ I bellowed up toward the canopy of the trees in irritation of her vagueness.

Cowering away from me like she was scared, she took a step back. "You need to go, Edward."

I took a step toward her to reclaim the distance she had just put between us. "I won't."

"You will," she whispered. "I can't let you make this mistake. You can't give up everything for me."

"I'm gaining everything in return. I love you, Isabella Swan, and as long as you love me, I need nothing else in this world for all of eternity. I need only _you_. I have only ever loved_ you_, and that will never change."

A lone tear traveled slowly down her cheek until it disappeared under her jaw. Defeat consumed everything about her – her mouth, her eyes, her shivering hands and legs, the sad way her head hung on her neck.

And that's when my life shattered like the glass in the frames.

Bella's appearance wasn't the cause for _my _mouth to turn down and_ my _eyes to lose their light. The cold Washington air wasn't what made _my _entire body start to shiver. Though it was a perfectly good reason, my exhaustion wasn't why _my_ head fell forward as the air that had occupied my lungs left my body.

No. It was what Bella muttered after my declaration of never-ending love that did all of this to me.

"I guess that changes things," I whispered.

My feet, acting on their own volition, spun me around and headed back the way they had brought me from. I was glad they knew their way back home without any thought. Too occupied with her vitriol, my mind placed my body on autopilot as it packed my belongings as quickly as it could. I didn't remember the drive to the airport or the flights to Seattle and Los Angeles. Nor did I remember how I got home. But my feet did all that for me.

_Home. In Los Angeles. Not in Forks.  
_

How in one second can one person's life change so drastically? Home lost. Future lost. Love lost.

Groaning, I punched my headboard feeling the pain radiate in my unhealed knuckles. Why was I kidding myself? I knew how something like that happened. It took one person with enough blackness in their heart to rip mine out of my chest and stomp on it. One person. One second. Everything...lost.

"_I have never loved you."_

* * *

**AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

Bloody hell. I see you've got your pitchforks ready to go hunt Bella down. Oh, you're coming for me instead? Just hold on for a second. Let me explain something.

Does it surprise you to know that in real life, mushy crap makes me gag? I'm not one for hearts and flowers and midnight strolls in the park (no beach, I live in Kansas). But with that, does it surprise you to know that when Edward says "You're my life now" to Bella, I get weak in the knees? Edward and Bella are meant for each other in my mind, hearts and flowers and secret meadows and all. Nobody else even compares. I cannot even read a fanfic that's not canon. Major wussperv. That's me.

So, do you really think I'm going to let these two flounder around for the rest of their fictional lives without a happily ever after? *shrugs* You be the judge.

Now that your pitchforks are lowered, how about you come back as soon as I have this next chapter ready, and we see where this story is going to take our dear Edward and Bella. Your pain and tears will be worth it. I promise. I have a flair for the dramatic if you haven't figured that out.

_Now go review and leave me a piece of your mind. I'm interested in what you have to say._

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	27. Chapter 27 Numb

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language**, violence, lemons

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Look at me go! That was only 13 days between updates! Not too shabby.

**_I've got a few announcements before we get started!_**

-A very kind reader by the name of **Seba nefer** has begun a French translation of this story and has posted Chapter 1 already. She asked for my permission a while back, and I felt honored to have someone want to do that for me, so I happily agreed. The link to "For You, Anything Traduction" can be found in my profile.

-If you like this story and would love to see it go beyond these final chapters, you may want to put me on author alerts because as soon as this is done, I am planning on several outtakes that will be posted under a different story name. The first outtake has already been started, and it will feature Bella's bachelorette party as well as when she comes home to find Jacob and Jessica together in bed. Intrigued? Go add me then! :)

-As of right now, plans have been set in motion for a blog devoted to this story and its outtakes. On it you will find the entire story plus photos, videos, banners, songs and more! I'm pretty excited to be working with **RCD-Alice** on such an endeavor. I'll announce as soon as it's live.

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**I have one new song this chapter that is so heartbreakingly beautiful and perfect that I can't imagine you not listening to it****! It's on YouTube this time, but here's the link: **http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=mzfNU76f2V8

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**CHAPTER 27**

**Numb**

I wasn't sure how long I laid on the ground. I wasn't sure what I hoped would happen to me. I only knew I didn't want to feel again. For so long I had felt everything.

The night air was colder than I had remembered it being in recent days, helping to dull my senses. Though I couldn't be sure because of the thick trees and cloud cover above, the sun seemed to have set hours ago. In this time, nature had come back to life all around, scampering and feeding, paying no attention to the human that curled herself into a ball next to a fallen tree covered in moss.

"_I have never loved you."_

I flinched as my words still echoed in the forest off one rockface to the next.

"_I have never loved you."_

They twirled around the tree trunks and swooped into caves and under branches, never stopping.

"_I have never loved you."_

The entire forest knew of my cruelty by now from north to south and east to west. It shunned me.

Nothing changed despite what he believed. The words were spoken, but they didn't change things. Not on the inside anyways. Not for me.

I wasn't stupid. The one person I needed in this world was Edward. What good was heroic sacrifice if you never sacrifice, though? The plan all along was to give my life for his, but it didn't work the first time around.

I couldn't fail again.

His life and happiness depended on it, and he wouldn't have either if he stayed behind for me. A glow like no other came off of him when I was able to see him working on set like it was his soul that was alight inside of him. A happiness of that magnitude was to be envied. What did I have to offer? Nothing. I had nothing to offer in this small town in the middle of nowhere. His career would be over, and that glow, his fire and drive, would burn out eventually. I would have been the cause. Edward could not stay.

"_Good God, Bella, I called Jane yesterday and told her I was quitting."_

I begged him not to make me do it, again and again, almost falling to my knees at his feet. I'd hurt him enough over the past few days. Why couldn't he just listen to me and leave? Why did he have to fight for me?

"_I love you, Isabella Swan, and as long as you love me, I need nothing else in this world for all of eternity." _

As long as I loved him...

My heart collapsed in on itself as I spoke the lie, but I did what I had to do. His heart was freshly cracked open from when I told him what I had wanted from James. He'd already gotten angry with me, screaming his disgust. There was only one option left. I had to hit him where I knew it would hurt the most and the quickest.

"_I have never loved you..."_

Seconds passed as the determination that had burned so fiercely in his eyes morphed into a hollow stare. With each change in his body, whether it was his turned-down mouth or his slumped shoulders, a part of me died on the inside though I showed him none of this. Nothing about my face or stance would contradict what I had said. He had to believe me.

And he did. For whatever reason, he did.

"_I guess that changes things."_

When he turned to leave, I closed my eyes so that I wouldn't have to watch my life walk away. _Crack. Snap. Crunch. _My eyes remained painfully clenched shut until the sounds of his feet meeting sticks and earth faded into nothingness. The moment I knew he was gone, far enough away that the truth wouldn't meet his ears, I finished my sentence knowing that though it was spoken, it wouldn't make it right.

"_...more than I do right now."_

Here I was, hours later, slowly splashing through the almost frozen water of the creek. At least I figured it was cold. The frigidity didn't pierce my skin as my feet had been numb since before it got dark.

No lights brightened the rooms in my glass house as it spread out before me, vulnerable to the elements. The similarities of this house to who I was didn't escape me. Though a fortress, locked down with heavy doors, her secrets were revealed if you got close enough. She was different as she stood there white and transparent compared to the density of the dark woods, but because of this transparency, she blended in, one with the nature like she'd been there forever and the surrounding trees had grown up around her. But, she was alone despite her companionship. No other houses dotted the lush land. Not for miles.

Sighing, I opened the back door and shut it quietly behind me. Silence welcomed me home. Darkness gave me a pat on the back like an old family friend.

"_It's good to have you with us again, kid,"_ it said to me. _"You've been gone too long."_

Ignoring its excitement, I pushed off the door and walked toward the stairs, trying not to think about the way my feet stuck to the hardwoods due to the blood that had begun seeping through my wounds again, broken open as I made my way back home.

I was tired. It was late. Past midnight now as the clock told me. But I didn't want to go to sleep. Sleep for normal people was for peace and dreams. For me, sleep was only an extension to the day full of thoughts and fears but worse as those thoughts and fears were heightened. At least it was that way when I slept alone.

The water rushed out of the chrome spout into the bathtub, sprinkling the sides with droplets that ran down until they met the other water. The droplets resembled tears. My clothes, covered in dirt and twigs, were in the waste basket under the sink, never to be seen again or remembered in a few short days when the trash was picked up.

Slowly the tub filled up to three-quarters full, and I stepped one foot and then the other into the steaming, shallow depth and settled my body down. I'd expected a shock from the temperature, but I felt nothing. My skin was cold and hard under the water, unfeeling to anything.

The blood washed off the cuts on my heels as I moved my feet creating tornadoes under the surface. Dirt floated to the bottom of the tub in tiny particles that moved in waves like schools of fish with each shift of my body.

The only noises in the house came from the rogue drips from the faucet. If I stretched just far enough, my big toe could plug the hole, delivering me the absolute quiet I craved. The drops probably would have tickled as they trailed down the sensitive skin of my arch if I could feel them, but the absence of all sounds was calming enough to distract me from the reality that what my body was or wasn't feeling right now was not natural. Grateful for the silence, I rested my head back against a bath pillow and closed my eyes...

.

.

.

.

.

"You ready to get out?"

My head snapped to the doorway, my breath catching sharply as I recognized _his_ voice. I blinked, sure that I was seeing things, but there _he_ stood in defiance of everything I had begged of him and cried over, smiling warmly at me like nothing had happened...like I hadn't broken his heart only hours before.

"Wh-wh-what are you doing here?" I stuttered. "I told you to leave. You left. Edward, I-"

My words stopped when he smiled and entered the room, making his way over to the side of the tub before sitting down. I couldn't move. He had me frozen like a marble statue, locked in his gaze.

Shaking his head like he was in awe, he whispered, "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on, love." His hand stretched out tentatively, and just as his warm fingertips grazed my cheek, a sharp pain shot from the ends of my toes up into my legs, radiating fire and ice.

"Ahhhh!" I screamed, sitting up to wrap my hands around my toes to put any kind of pressure on them to relieve the pain. The whooshing of the air around me swirled his familiar scent up my nostrils, and I shot my eyes back to where he was seated. But he was gone. No sign of him remained except his scent.

Scrambling out of the tub, I wrapped a towel around my torso, ignoring the sting and pinpricks all up and down my legs and arms as they found feeling again like my other senses. Despite everything I had said in the forest, he had not left me. I had said the worst thing I could, shattering his trust, but he had not left me. He gave me the amount of time I needed to work out my misery alone, but he had not left me. _He had not left me._

His scent was everywhere but concentrated in certain areas. It was heaviest in the bathroom and closet and on his side of the bed when I ran into the library. My throat constricted as I could sense him in the hallway and downstairs in the kitchen and living room. His scent may have been everywhere, but he was nowhere. At least not in the house.

Heading for the front door, I threw it open and ignored the blaring alarm that I caused.

"Edward!" I shouted out into the stillness, but there was no response. I took a step out onto the small porch in my towel, trying to tuck it tighter around me for any kind of warmth.

"Edward!" My voice carried across the front yard, beckoning him to show himself, but my plea faded before it even reached the forest. Adjusting to the darkness, my eyes fell upon the gravel driveway, void of all cars, and a sinking feeling in my chest grew making it hard for me to breathe.

"Edward?" I croaked, feeling more unsure of myself. The wind picked up just then charging along the path of my driveway like a wind tunnel between the trees sending an icy gust straight to my front door that knocked me back, whipping my towel and hair around before they settled back down in their resting positions.

_Edward._

I could smell his sweet scent outside just like in the house. Down the stairs. Down the driveway. Out onto the road. _Gone. _No more time was needed to understand what had just happened. I should have known as soon as I heard his voice.

"It was just a dream," I whimpered before a wracking sob erupted from my chest as every reality and pain I'd been so numb to for hours hit me like a freight train. Edward had done what I'd asked of him. He believed every lie as it tumbled from my lips tasting like acid. He turned and walked away, leaving me behind in the wake of my own heartlessness. _He left me._

Stepping back inside, I shut the door behind me and stood in front of the alarm on the wall as my body jolted with my hiccups for air. It was flashing and screeching, trying its best to drown out the thoughts in my mind, but I wanted to be berated from the inside out for the hurt I knew he was feeling right now. The way I made him doubt what we had together deserved ridicule.

After punching in the code to stop the sound, I curled my fingers around the box. Grunting, I used all of my remaining strength to rip the system out of the wall, shredded brightly-colored wires and all, and I headed upstairs with it in my hand. Without any hesitation, I grabbed the bat from behind my door and made my way down the hall.

I rarely went into this room. It was Edward's baby with Emmett. They'd promised we were safer with these televisions in place, showing us every angle of the house and bookstore. The cameras were still running, though there was no reason for them anymore. The danger was gone, like Edward.

Dropping the alarm keypad to the floor, I swung the bat back and slammed it into the first television that hung on the wall with more anger than I had ever felt. Sparks flew as the end crushed through the flat panel screen. Pulling the bat back again, feeling the muscles and tendons in my arms contract and expand, I hit the television again, going deeper and rocking its wall mount. With one more powerful swing, it came crashing down onto the table below and then to the floor next to my feet just like my towel.

Continuing my demolition, I destroyed the other two televisions until the room was unrecognizable, darkened from its normal dim light. Plastic and metal littered the carpet around me like a bomb had gone off. Just like in my heart. And it would stay like that because I would make no effort to clean it up.

The bat fell from my fingers as I walked quietly out of the room and back downstairs.

I was tired. It was late. Past two in the morning now as the clock told me. But I didn't want to go to sleep. Sleep for normal people was for peace and dreams. For me, sleep was when Edward haunted me and made me feel like I didn't hurt him.

Maybe I'd sleep another day.

* * *

The light and the dark came several times. I'd lost track of how many times exactly. Three or four possibly? Maybe on the outside it looked like it, but I wasn't exactly comatose. When I needed to go to the bathroom, I went to the bathroom. If my stomach growled, I ate something until it stopped. I had made no move to leave this house, though, or go back to the bedroom where his scent lingered in every nook and cranny and in every item of clothing and under the sheets.

He was everywhere in the house, but the bedroom was where he was the most. I just couldn't bear it yet, but I knew this avoidance couldn't go on forever. It was my bedroom. My haven. My clothes were in there and my toiletries.

I'd made due with what I had downstairs for the past several days, however many had passed. My hair and skin weren't happy with the dish soap bath they got each day in the downstairs shower. There were only so many times I could wash the one set of clothes that were in the hamper in the laundry room while I wandered around naked, only wrapped in a blanket, while they tumbled in the dryer.

The phone rang, too. More than I liked. So I let my cell phone die. That's when the house phone began to ring. I answered because I didn't want them coming over, but I only muttered the necessary words before hanging up.

"_I'm alive. Don't come over."_

That didn't stop them from calling, though. My dad always was first each new day. Alice was next followed by Rosalie and Angela before Alice called again. If I kept this avoidance up, they would go against my wishes and come over. I knew that. That was the last thing I needed, though, so I finally gave in.

"Bells?" Alice asked quietly after I picked up and didn't say my usual greeting. "Is that you?"

"Yeah," I whispered.

"Are you okay, honey?"

I didn't answer. That _was_ my answer.

"Can I come over?"

"No, not yet."

"Okay. I'm always here for you if you need me."

"Thanks, Ali. Just not yet, okay? Give me another day or something."

"Alright. If that's what you need. I love you, best friend."

"Love you, too."

That was yesterday. This was _another day_. Alice would show up today, but I didn't know when. She had Brandon to take care of in the morning and a business to run during the daylight. Her family needed fed in the evening, including the little one growing inside of her, so I didn't know when she would be able to pencil in a therapy session with me. She didn't have to, but she would. I didn't want her to, but I did.

Obviously, not one of them had taken heed to what I'd said that day, but I would have been lying if I said I expected them to. If they wanted me to talk about it, though, they were fooling themselves. I didn't want to hear it, yet. Angela's speech was heard, but I didn't want to consider it. Not right now.

Passing the clock on the way to the stairs, I noted the time. It was just past five in the morning. Another light was coming after a long dark.

I'd slept a few times here and there even though I fought it each time. Once was at the dining room table as I ate a sandwich. Another time was on the bathroom floor after I threw up from crying so hard. The other time was on the couch as I watched a television I never turned on. When my eyes closed, Edward got them to open with an imaginary touch. Every time. Just as his hands or lips touched mine, I jolted upright. Then I'd spend the remainder of the day fending off the sleep with meaningless activities to keep my mind and body busy, away from any kind of rest.

In my dreams, Edward never spoke of the events that happened. It was as if that day never existed. I wanted him to scream and yell and throw things, but he never did. When I awoke, always crying, I never knew if the tears were because I wanted him to treat me with the hatred I knew he felt or if I was longing for his touch. Falling asleep was both a heaven and a hell.

At the top of the stairs, I saw that my bedroom door was still halfway open because I had pulled the baseball bat out from behind it the other night and had never been back in. If Alice was coming over, I needed to look somewhat presentable because she couldn't know that I'd been in a state of depression since that day. Knowing there was nothing that could be done anymore to avoid going in the room, I entered and tried my best to reject the ache that I felt as soon as I saw his perfectly fluffy pillow missing the dent where his head usually rested.

The freesia and lavender scent of my shampoo and body wash was relaxing to my tired mind as it invaded my nose and made him disappear for several minutes. That relief didn't last long as I walked through my now emptier closet to the back in search of the bulky sweatshirts and sweatpants that hid on a shelf behind shoe boxes. His clothes had taken up a section of railing on top and bottom on the right side. Now all that was left in those areas were naked white plastic hangers saddened by the loss of something to do.

Swiping the unruly tears off my face, I made my way out of the closet just as the doorbell rang. Not much was said when I opened the front door. Alice, Rosalie and Angela stood on one side of the threshold. I stood on the other. Then I was in their arms as I began to collapse to the floor.

"He's gone," I sobbed, taken aback by how all of the fight I thought I had in me had dissipated in the one second it took for me to see their concerned faces.

"I know, Bells," Alice murmured, patting my tousled hair down in the back.

"I told him I never loved him."

"I heard," Rosalie whispered.

"It was a lie," I cried.

"We know it was." Angela's voice was the quietest of all.

"He can't ever know."

Arms tightened around me as we all stood there for several minutes, one mass of hugs and sniffles. For so long I had been my own support system, but for some reason I couldn't do it this time. This hit deeper than anything I had ever experienced before because the severity of my loss was greater.

If I was honest with myself, I'd given up my true best friend. Edward knew me in ways that Alice never would, just the same way as Jasper knew Alice like I would never know her. That was what happened when you fell in love. It was accepted between the two of us, just never spoken.

That wasn't all I lost, though. I'd also denied myself the lover of all lovers that knew everything about where and how to touch me and that transported me to a place where I could lose myself in him and only him. The world didn't matter when we were connected, him loving me and me loving him as no other had. From a simple kiss to a passionate shattering of the mind, we were one. Now we were two again.

Above all, greater than a best friend and a lover gone, was the loss of a future filled with such indescribable love and bliss. I would never find this level of completeness again as long as I lived even though I knew that I would never even seek to find it. It didn't exist unless it was with him. There was no reason to scale mountains and dip into valleys in search of honest to goodness love, when what I had and what I gave up was the best I would get.

Before I even said those horrible words, I knew what I was losing. I was losing friendship and enchantment and love. I was losing Edward. I was losing my life.

"Girls?" I whispered into Rosalie's hair, finally unable to hang on any longer.

"Yeah?" they all replied together.

"I'm tired."

Everything about me had shut down. All of the strength in my legs had vanished leaving me at the mercy of their arms. I was done.

Moments later I found myself in bed laying on my side, staring at the emptiness of his. Nowhere in my body could I find the energy to protest being put there and not down the hall in a guest bedroom. Their feet were shuffling toward the door, preparing to either take them downstairs or to go home completely, and I tensed.

"Please don't leave me alone," I whimpered, unable to see them. "He won't let me sleep when I try. I need you here to keep him away."

"Who won't let you sleep?" Rosalie asked, curiosity evident in her question.

"Edward," I whispered. "He always finds me in my dreams." There was silence for a long stretch of time before their three pairs of feet scooted along the carpet and then were up in the bed tucked under the blanket tangling with mine.

"We'll be here when you wake up," Alice said, wrapping her arm around me and kissing my forehead.

With the comfort of my friends to support me, grateful for their presence in my life, I allowed myself to finally fall asleep.

.

.

.

.

.

"Do you think she's slept at all in the past week?"

"Look at the circles under her eyes and you tell me."

"It's been _a week_. If she's not sleeping, that can't be good for her system."

"How is it even possible?

"I'll tell you how. She's torturing herself."

"Or _he's_ torturing her. You heard her say he finds her in her dreams."

A hushed conversation floated along a cloud above me. The voices carried a dream-like quality to them, muffled and distant.

"Have you heard how he's doing?"

"Emmett says he's never seen him so intense before."

"What does he mean by that?"

"He was saying that he's been spending every waking second totally absorbed in something like he's trying to do anything but think about her. The script, a book, a cereal box, whatever he can find. Emmett's concerned, but he hopes that when filming picks up again tomorrow, he'll start to mellow out."

"Do you think that's what _she_ needs? Something to do? She's been cooped up in this house for seven days. I'd bet you she hasn't left once. And people in town have been asking when she's going to reopen the bookstore. It's been closed for so long now."

"Do you blame her, though, after everything we've learned?"

"No, and I don't know how difficult it's going to be for her to return."

"Everything has been cleaned, right?"

"Yeah, a crew was brought in to clean up the scene and return it to normal. Ben went over there yesterday to check on things with the insurance company. He said it doesn't even look like anything happened."

"That doesn't mean she won't see it when she steps foot in there again, though. That kind of horror doesn't leave a person's mind, and we sure as hell know it won't leave hers any time soon."

"Maybe we should talk to Charlie about that. I can call him when I go home and make sure he could stay with her the first day just to make sure."

"Have you talked to him at all?"

"He called yesterday. He's so distraught by what she said. He kept asking me if I knew what she meant when she said she had to do what she could to keep him happy. I didn't. Do you?"

"No."

"I don't, either."

"I'm worried."

"Me, too. If you think about everything she said that day, I have a feeling there is so much more to this story."

"I have a feeling that she has been lying to everybody all along, just like she did with _him_. Why would she do this?"

"She doesn't think she's worth it."

"Worth what?"

"He told Emmett that once he's done with the movie, he's quitting acting."

"He _didn't..._"

"He did. When he told her, that is when she said she never loved him."

"Do you think that's why she said it? To get him to leave?"

"I think that's exactly why."

"If _we_ can figure that out, why can't he?"

"Who knows? He's not talking about it very much. When I go to LA next week to visit Emmett, I'm going to have a talk with him. You can trust me on that."

"Don't be too hard on him. She hurt him."

"I know that. But he's a dumbass for believing it. _She's never loved him_...give me a break."

The murmured banter fell silent for a few long minutes before someone spoke even quieter than before.

"You don't think that it's over between them, like, permanently, do you?"

"No. A love like that can't be over. We just need to make them see that."

"But I've never seen her like this before. This is worse than Jake."

"Exactly. She loves him enough that this is killing her. We need to make her see that she's worth everything he wants to give her."

"Do I hear a fifth grade pact in the works?"

"I think you do."

"So, what's the plan?"

"Number one: Support her until she's ready to talk because we've now all witnessed what happens when you push her when she's not ready."

"Number two: Get her up and moving and get her out of this fucking house."

"Number three: Smack him around a little bit until he realizes he needs to fight for her."

Soft laughter filtered through the air.

"Number four: Don't leave if she pushes us away. She can say she doesn't need us all she wants, but you saw her downstairs."

The laughter died.

"Number five: Tell her every day that we love her until he takes over again."

"I love you, girls."

"Me, too."

"Me, three."

"Love you, Bella," three soft voices chimed, farther away this time than any other word spoken.

And then the dreamy whispers faded away completely with the clouds.

* * *

"Bella?" A tiny hand was on my shoulder, shaking vigorously. "You going to wake up any time soon?"

Rolling to my left onto my stomach, I pulled a pillow over my head trying to shut out the voice of my pixie friend. It didn't work. Down pillows are not soundproof.

"You slept a little over twenty-four hours. Angela went and got breakfast in town at the diner because you didn't have any food. No eggs, no bacon, no milk. I mean, you had cereal in your pantry, but you didn't have milk, like I said, and what's cereal without milk? I guess it's still cereal, but that's boring and definitely not a delicious breakfast. I guess you had some oatmeal, too, but I like milk in that, as well, so yeah. No food."

A sound similar to a grumble or a moan escaped my mouth. She had always been so long-winded. "I gathered that I had no food the first time you said I had no food, Ali."

Without warning, the pillow was gone, and she was crouched on top of me. "Wow! Look at that hair!"

I took a deep breath to calm myself and buried my face farther into the mattress. "Really, what does it matter?"

"_What does it matter?"_ she asked incredulously. "Well, if you look like shit, you'll feel like shit. Do you feel like shit, Bella?"

"Yes, I do, thank you."

"Well, it's because you look it. Get your ass up and into that shower and meet us downstairs as soon as you're ready. I'll have Angela plate your food. Up!" She topped her aggravating motivational speech off with a smack on my fleece-covered right butt cheek and bound out the door as she yelled another command. "And change out of those God forsaken sweats! I will find where you've got those hidden before the end of the day and burn them! You have my word!"

I groaned and hooked the pillow she'd pulled off of me with the crease of my elbow so that I could drag it under my head. I breathed in and out evenly several times in the quiet until I realized where my body was lying and what I held in my arms. Sinking my face into the soft down covered in cotton, I inhaled shakily through my nose and squeezed my eyes shut, surprising myself with the sheer magnitude of longing my heart felt for him as I laid on _his_ side and used _his_ pillow.

Twenty-four hours I had slept, uninterrupted by his presence. I should have been happy. I should have been relieved. To finally succumb to the force of fatigue – to finally get to close my eyes without fear of him walking into my dreams – was what I had begged for every day. But now that I had been given what I desired, a feeling of emptiness like no other centered itself in the hole in my chest. I didn't know what it meant other than this was the loneliest I'd felt since the day he left. And that scared me.

"I miss you, Edward" I whispered, feeling the moist material against my skin where my tears had soaked through. "Please make this pain worth it." With one last deep breath, I crawled out of bed and went to take a shower.

Thirty minutes later I was at the dining room table dressed in a gray cashmere sweater dress, black leggings and floral ballet flats. Conversation flowed easily between my three friends like it always had, but I sat back and listened silently as I picked at the french toast that was sadly a little too cold for my liking, though I wasn't all that amused with eating it to begin with. My mind was in another place entirely, uninterested in town gossip or whatever they were chattering about.

"Have you, Bella?"

Interrupted from my zoning out but clearly hearing my name spoken, I zeroed in on Angela's question, unsure of what she had asked.

"What was that?"

"Old Man Caius came in the studio late last week asking when the bookstore was going to open again. Have you given any thought to it? I told him it would probably be a while, but I promised I'd get back to him if you told me."

"Oh," I blinked. "No, I hadn't given it any thought." Sadly, running the bookstore had been the last thing on my mind for far too long. For years of my life it had been a priority, but it had taken a backseat however willingly or unwillingly when Edward became the priority.

"That's okay," she smiled. "I'll just tell him that you don't know. There's no rush at all."

"Ummm..." I contemplated. "What day is today?"

Alice looked at me kind of funny and said, "Monday."

I fought off the pang of heartache that he'd been gone eight days not three or four by quickly coming up with any sort of answer that would keep the conversation moving.

"I don't know why I can't open again this week."

Rosalie's mouth popped open. "Bella, I don't think any of us expect you to open this week. Not after-"

Putting my hands up in the air, I stopped her from finishing that sentence. "Please don't," I grimaced. Their faces saddened, but I continued. "I have responsibilities. My grandmother is probably rolling over in her grave at how her business has been handled lately. The last thing I would want to do is disappoint her."

"Are you sure?" Alice asked. "Maybe you should take some time to think this through."

I took a deep breath and did my best to hold off the tears. "All I've had is time. It's passing, and I can't keep up. I need something to latch onto to pull me with it. Something steady and true. Something that's always been there. I can stay here in this house and not know what day it is, or I can go to work and do something that fills the space between sleeps."

"That's not a life," Alice murmured.

"I never said it was," I croaked, shrugging my shoulders. "But this is what I've got left."

"It doesn't have to be that way," Rosalie added. "There are other options-"

"There are no other options," I cut her off. "Everybody makes choices, and this was mine. You'll never understand what I've gone through and why I did the things I did. I don't expect you to. But I do expect you to respect my decision. For me, for him...there was no other option." The end of my sentence was almost inaudible as I tried my best to not cry. The strain in my throat was painful as I forced the words out.

We all sat there silently poking at the remaining gelatinous maple syrup with our forks unsure of what to say anymore. I knew why they all came when they did and what this was all about this morning from the wake-up call to the breakfast to the random banter. None of it mattered, though. False normalcy wouldn't bring back the pre-Edward Bella no matter how hard they tried. Who I was now was who I would be tomorrow and the next day. What was done was done.

As the last hand was dried after cleaning up the plates and to-go containers, Angela grabbed her purse and said that she had to go because she had a photo shoot in an hour and needed to prepare the backdrops. Rosalie had to go, as well, because she had an appointment with a patient, so I gave them each a hug and waved goodbye while they pulled out of the driveway.

Alice and I stood alone on the steps with our arms crossed over our chests for several minutes once they were gone before either of us said anything. I was the first to break the silence because I knew we could stand there for hours.

"Did you really stay in bed with me all day and night?"

Without hesitation, she answered. "Each and every minute except when we took turns to eat and use the restroom."

A few pieces of my shattered heart mended themselves in that second realizing the amount of kindness and caring my friends possessed.

"We love you. You needed us, and you'll still need us. And we'll always be there. No matter what. I'm not giving up on you, Bella."

A lone tear streaked down my cheek as I swallowed down the lump in my throat. "I never wanted you to, but it's for completely different reasons that yours. I don't want to lose you, Ali."

She smiled sadly. "I'm not going anywhere." After a shaky breath, she wiped the tears that were building in her eyes off with her sleeve and then gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and turned to leave down the steps.

"When are you reopening?" she asked before getting into her car.

"Saturday," I answered quietly.

She nodded her head. "I call Charlie and tell him. You're not going through that alone."

* * *

I had been standing on the top step for thirteen minutes staring at a wood door with a perfect pane of crystal clear glass in the middle of it. The store wasn't officially set to reopen for another four minutes, so I didn't see the point in rushing things. There was no line of customers or a grand banner hanging above the door announcing my return. Words and Paper was just there like it always had been, ready for business when I was ready.

And I was ready.

I just needed a couple more minutes...just a couple more.

"You do know that it's not an automatic door, don't you?" a voice whispered right behind me.

Gasping, I spun around clutching my chest in surprise and then relaxed when I saw who it was. "Jesus, dad. How long have you been standing there?"

He checked his watch and then smiled. "About seven and a half minutes. I was going to give you a little longer, but I've really got to pee, Bells." He emphasized this by bouncing up and down a little in his place at the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh, sorry," I sputtered, turning back around and fumbling with my keys in the lock. "You should have said something." No sooner had I turned the knob, he was past me walking quickly in the direction of the bathroom. I smiled as I turned the closed sign around to read 'open' and then threw my purse on the counter. "Dad, do we need to look into adult diapers for you in your old age? This was a close call by the looks of it."

"Ha!" he boisterously replied from behind the door. "Very funny!"

A few moments later he was back out into the main part of the store taking his jacket off to throw over the chair. He stood in the middle of the room, and I stood near the cash register and we both took a deep breath. I knew what was on his mind because it was the same thing on my mind. The last time we were standing in this room, we were in the exact same places, except his gun was pointed at the head of a man that held a gun to my head.

"So..." he said, rocking on his heels. "I took the day off."

"I see that," I said, noticing his plaid flannel button-up and jeans.

"Thought we'd hang out. It's been a while."

"I know Alice called you to babysit me."

"Nah," he tried to lie, but he knew he'd been caught so he surrendered. "Yeah. She thought it might be good for the both of us to...bond...or something."

Sighing, I walked over to the couch and propped my feet up on the coffee table after plopping down. "You don't have to do this, dad. It's not like you can be here all the time on the off-chance that I freak out."

"Who says I can't be?"

I rolled my eyes. "Sure, I could break down and cry in an hour, and you would be here to calm me, but what if something triggers a memory six months from now when you're working?"

He took a deep breath and then sat down on the couch next to me, wrapping his left arm around my shoulders. "Bella, I have done enough worrying about you over the past two weeks that I don't want to think about what six months down the road may bring. I don't even want to think about tomorrow. It's too much for me to handle."

"_Dad_," I tried to protest, but he placed his rough hand over my mouth, pushing the words that were going to spill out back in behind my lips.

"Don't," he whispered. "You're not a parent, yet. You don't understand what it's like to see the person you swore to protect the moment you held her in your arms after she was born, hurting like I've seen you hurting for nine years. I _can't_ think about tomorrow when I may only have today."

Staring into his deep, chocolate eyes, I began to notice things I'd never seen before. The wrinkles were deeper around his eyes and on his forehead than the laugh lines were around his mouth. His hair was grayer around his temples than I remembered it being only months ago. Age had snuck up on him overnight it seemed.

"Because you also don't understand what it's like to hear your child begging to die when you've done everything in your power their entire lives to keep that from happening."

The tears were already falling from my eyes, when I heard the bell jingle behind me signaling someone entering. Dad cleared his throat as he sat up straighter while I wiped at my face, and then he jumped up off the couch.

"Here, let me help you Caius," dad said. Standing, I saw my loyal customer hobbling into the store slowly as his companion that always drove him here and helped him up the stairs closed the door behind him.

"Ahhh, thank you, Charlie," he said in his familiar rasp when dad's hand curled around his frail arm to lead him toward me.

"Hi, Caius" I smiled sincerely, leaning in for a hug. "How have you been?"

He shrugged and bobbed his head. "I'm still kicking. Things can't get much better than that at this age."

"How old are you now?" dad asked, smirking.

Old Man Caius mumbled something unintelligible, and then answered, "I'll be ninety-seven next month."

"Well, I wouldn't have guessed a day over ninety," I laughed. Dad and I both smiled at the way my joke made him chuckle.

"Ever the sweetheart," he crooned, patting his crooked, knobbly fingers on my cheek. Then his smile turned into a frown. "Why how did you get those bruises, Isabella?"

When I stood in front of the mirror this morning in the bathroom, I did what I could to cover the yellowed reminders of that night. I thought the concealer I owned had done a fine job, but even an almost-blind man could still see them. Caius, mostly resigned to his home, had obviously not heard or read anything pertaining to the incident, and for that I was grateful. At least there was one person in this world that didn't know.

"Nothing to worry yourself over," I answered, trying to brush it off.

He tutted but still patted my cheek. "Beautiful no matter," he whispered. "Just like your grandmother."

Dad snorted, and I did my best to not do the same. Old Man Caius had always had a thing for Grandma Marie even though he was twenty years her senior. Despite his probable crush, things never progressed past rainy Sundays reading Shakespeare in his living room or lazy evenings drinking tea on the porch. I knew this because half the time she was over there, I was there, too.

I didn't pay attention while I was swept away into a fairytale as I played princess with my dolls on the stairs, but her and Caius were meant to find each other and become best friends.

Grandpa Lee had died of a heart attack two years before I was born, and grandma had remained alone, living out the rest of her years working at the bookstore and spoiling me, her only grandchild from her only child. From what I had been told, grandpa was a passionate man, always hugging and kissing her until she flushed scarlet. There was never any doubt where I inherited my blushing according to dad.

Grandpa's death was hard on grandma for a long time because it was so unexpected, but she'd found a friend in Caius when he started coming into the bookstore once a week. They shared a common interest in literature, and their friendship was as easy as breathing. Only after grandma died, though, did we learn how much he cherished her when he kissed her mahogany casket at the funeral. My tears that day had been held in for my father's sake until that moment when I saw the amount of heartache he had in his eyes for losing his friend.

"What has you so sad, sweetheart?"

Shaking my head, I broke out of my daydream to the sound of Caius' voice. He was standing in front of me, scrutinizing my facial expression as best as he could with his weakened eyes.

"I'm not sad," I tried to say steadily, but my voice cracked anyways.

He pursed his lips and then reached for the arm of the chair blindly behind him. Dad helped him sit down, and we sat down across from him on the couch.

"I've seen that face before," he said, getting a far-away look on this face. "That was the face Marie got when she thought about your grandpa. That's even the face Charlie here gets when he thinks about his Renee."

"It's nothing like that," I whispered, picking at my fingers.

"Isabella, I know that face like it was my own looking back at me because _it is_. Every day I wake, I'm greeted by that face in the mirror."

My eyes scrunched together not understanding what he meant.

"That's how I look when I think about Marie, sweetheart. It's the face we show when we lose the one we love." My breath caught in my throat. Leaning forward, he patted my hand. "You look so much like her in the eyes. I miss her brown eyes."

"Caius..." I breathed, not really sure what I was wanting to say.

"Haven't you always wondered why I still come down here all the time? I haven't actually been able to read a book in years," he chuckled.

"You come down here because I remind you of my grandma?" I asked. "You loved her?"

"Very much. For years I loved her from afar and for years I loved her near. I see so much of her in you, and it makes me happy to see your eyes so alight. But that's gone today. There's no fire in there."

I blinked to diminish the burn and felt a teardrop fall onto my hand that rested in my lap.

"I still love her, you see, but once again from afar. Time ran out for us. I don't know if it would have ever mattered because she loved your grandfather so much still, as she should, but I saw the way I made her happy. I would have given her the world, Isabella."

Dad cleared his throat behind me. "Did you ever tell her this?"

"No," Caius answered, shaking his head. "Jury is still out on whether that was the best decision or not. She could have hated me after that or she could have loved me in return."

"She wouldn't have hated you," I whispered, recalling the way he made her laugh.

"I'll never know for sure," he replied. "She was my first great love, and I'll never know if she felt any of that love for me, even if only a fraction."

"Your first great love?" I croaked.

He nodded. "I loved one other woman in my life, but seventy years I waited for _her_. Can you believe that? And I found her in this bookstore on a sunny day in August."

"I never knew," I whispered.

"She never did, either, sweetie. I've lived many years and done many things, but if there was one thing I would say I regret, it would have been how I never told her. It took me a long time after she was gone to realize it, but she deserved to know that she was loved. She may have told me to never speak to her again, but at least she would have known."

"She knew," I breathed. "People know those things even if they're not said."

He smiled weakly. "Until I meet her again, I only have hope."

After Old Man Caius found a new book for his companion to read to him and we said our goodbyes, dad and I busied ourselves with cleaning and reorganizing until the hour and minute hands on the clock pointed straight up and down away from each other and it was time to go home.

"You need me to come back tomorrow?" he asked while helping me down the stairs in the dark.

I shook my head. "Today was good, dad. I think I can handle it."

"Can I come by and check just for my own sanity?"

"You're always welcome to come by," I smiled. Stretching up, I gave him a strong hug around his neck. "Thank you for today and thank you for every day. You're the best father I could have wished for."

His arms tightened around my back. "We're not done talking, Bella. I have a lot of questions, but I'll wait until you're ready to talk."

"Thank you," I whispered. "I'll tell you everything some day. I promise. Just not yet."

And with that, he got into his police car, and I got into my SUV and we went in our opposite directions.

* * *

The drive home was tedious as I maneuvered the winding road through my tears once I finally allowed myself to break down. Caius' words had wounded me in a way that I never expected. He had loved my grandmother and had never told her. He had a chance at love and lost it completely. His regret was crippling. It frightened me to my core. What if I lived to ninety-seven with this amount of pain? I couldn't imagine what would be left of me. I wasn't sure if I could do this.

When I walked inside, I headed straight upstairs and found myself circling in the middle of my library, sobbing as I asked my mother for help. This was where I went when I needed her. But I couldn't hear her no matter how loud I screamed her name. The fear in my head was too deafening.

Painting after painting of the meadow filled my vision, but I stopped turning when my eyes landed on the empty place in the wall.

_"Though incomplete, they are still beautiful, Bella. They are still cherished and loved..."_

Edward's words from that day we went to the meadow hit me all of a sudden, and I knew what I had to do without any other thought. He probably didn't know that what he said back then would affect the rest of his life now, but here I was with my answer.

As I sat at the piano, I lifted the lid off the keys and started to softly play one of my favorite songs.

_Lay a whisper on my pillow  
Leave the winter on the ground  
I wake up lonely, is there a silence  
In my bedroom and all around_

_Touch me now, I close my eyes  
And dream away..._

_It must have been love, but it's over now  
It was all that I wanted, but I lost it somehow  
It must have been love, but it's over now  
From the moment we met, till time had run out_

_Make believing we're still together  
That I am sheltered by your heart  
But in and outside I turn to water  
Like a teardrop in your palm_

_And it's a hard winter's day  
I dream away..._

_It must have been love, but it's over now  
It was all that I wanted, but I lost it somehow  
It must have been love, but it's over now__  
From the moment we met, till time had run out  
Time has run out..._

_It must have been love, but it's over now  
It was all that I wanted, but I lost it somehow  
It must have been love, but it's over now  
From the moment we met, till time had run out_

_And time has run out..._

Tired from the day, I exited my secret room as I turned off the light and crawled into bed. I wasn't afraid to go to sleep anymore. I hadn't been since the day I realized how much it hurt when he wasn't in my dreams. If this was the only way I would be able to feel him near me, I would handle his torturous smile every night. That was all I needed to get through the long darks.

As my head sunk into the pillow, I closed my eyes and felt myself instantly fall into peace. And there he was like always. He smiled and I smiled, and for too short a time, we loved each other from afar until I felt the spark of his searing kiss on my lips, and I was awoken to find another light had come around. Sitting up, I stared out into the emerald green of the trees, the color of his eyes, and felt him staring back.

I could do this. For one day. For one year. For one lifetime however long.

For him to be happy. For him to live.

For him...anything.

**

* * *

**

**AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

**Because I was bored and hadn't made an outfit in a while, check my profile for Bella's sweater dress/leggings combo.  
**

So...hi. Another angsty chapter is through. Do you feel the hope even though Bella took that hope and beat it over the head with a frying pan until it was practically dead? I still feel it. I hope you do, too.

Did you listen to the song? I usually don't like covers of famous songs, but this one might just outrank the original. She makes me want to cry with the slow, emotional melody compared to the pop version from Pretty Woman. Good stuff.

Anyways, I think I may have another favorite character. Emmett and Esme have been my favorites for so long now, but Old Man Caius sure stole a piece of my heart. I love that little old man.

_Now go review and leave me a piece of your mind. I'm interested in what you have to say._

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	28. Chapter 28 Hope

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is my first story. Edward is an actor. Bella lives in Forks, the location of his next movie. Sparks fly easily when they first meet, but will things always stay that easy for them? Absolutely not!

Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language**, violence, lemons

* * *

I want to thank the beautiful and kind **RCD-Alice** for all that she does for me. If you check my profile, you'll see that she has been a busy bee recommending and reviewing my story across the twific fandom, all the way up to The Twilight Awards. She even has a blog devoted to pushing fanfics, and it's called The Wayward Pushers, which she jointly runs with** thewaywardgirl**. So, go check that out and also go read her amazing story called Fade Into you.

I've got a few more thank you's to hand out, and they go to **rileyks3** and **daretobreath**. These two have been all over facebook and livejournal pimping this fic out, and it obvious when they do. Hits spike and new readers begin reviewing.

And for something totally mind-blowing,** daretobreath** is incredibly talented at making videos, and she has made a _**TRAILER**_ for my story! I'm in awe. It's gorgeous. Here's the link: **http:/www[.]youtube[.]com/watch?v=im1aiU90UgU **which is also in my profile. WOW!

It's a beautiful thing what people are willing to do for me. I don't feel like I deserve it.

Thank you everybody, for everything. From reading to reviewing to pimping to making artwork. I'm truly grateful.

* * *

**Chapter 28**

**Hope**

Our bodies moved as one unit, wrapped up in a need only we could fulfill. Her manicured, red fingernails scratched down my back alighting nerve endings that had been dormant for weeks. The long tendrils of her hair knotted between my fingers, and I pulled gently, angling her head back so that I could attach my mouth to the skin under her ear.

"I've missed your neck and the taste of your skin right here," I whispered against the goosebumps, husky and raw.

Under mine, her body arched, and I reacted by pulling her arms up and behind her head as I thrust against her deeper and harder. She moaned, and I continued my seduction.

"I've missed you. Everything about you. I'm never leaving you again."

Her chest quivered uncontrollably with pleasure, ribs slick with sweat and grating along mine. Every sensual word I had spoken about her smile and her nose and her eyes made her whimper. I briefly brought my lips to hers, hungry for connection, and then trailed individual slow kisses, tongue sampling along the way, down her neck and to her collarbone while I smoothly pushed against her.

"Never again will I leave your side or this bed – our bed – Charlotte," I panted. "Never again will I love a woman the way I love you. You are all I dreamed of while I was away, and you are all I will ever need."

"Oh, Peter," Victoria breathed, grinding against me under the sheet.

I ascended her nude body again, adjusting my arm so that her breasts would be hidden from the camera and locked eyes with her to deliver the next line. "All I've ever needed, Charlotte," I murmured to reaffirm what I had just declared. "Everything I'll ever need for the rest of my life."

Her breaths were coming out in short bursts into my mouth, and once I saw that one perfectly-timed and perfectly-lit tear slide down from the corner of her eye into her hair, I spoke the two words that movie goers would be holding their breaths for.

"Marry me."

Both hearing and feeling her gasp, I paused my ministrations and waited for the emotions she was so good at expressing to flash across her face. Surprise... Excitement... Shock... And finally... _Undying love_.

"Yes, Peter. With all of my heart, yes."

A wide smile broke out across her face as more tears flowed on cue, and I lowered my mouth to hers for our most romantic kiss of the entire film while rolling with her in my arms out of the shot.

"CUT!" Emmett yelled.

Victoria and I both broke apart and sat up still tangled in the white sheet that had been our PG-13 censor.

"Damn," Emmett whistled, shaking his hand like it had been burnt. "This re-shoot was probably my best idea so far. Hot, you two. H-O-T. Hot."

Victoria snorted and rolled her eyes. "You do realize you got wood by watching your brother have fake sex, right?" she joked. "Isn't that a little messed up?"

Emmett scowled and dropped his clipboard down in front of his pants. "I did _not_ get wood."

She laughed. "Then you have one very hard, and I will probably regret that I admitted this later, _impressively_ large_,_ flaccid-"

"_Please_," I whined, catching her before she could add any more adjectives that would only inflate his ego. "Not _another _conversation that revolves around the size of my brother's dick. I've had enough of those in the past couple of months to last a lifetime."

Thankfully, they both smiled sheepishly and dropped it.

Personal assistants descended on the sound stage with robes a few seconds later, and I gladly took mine. When I stood, completely covered from the neck down and not just my men thanks to the modesty pouch, Emmett called me over and showed me the playback while Victoria got her makeup retouched just in case we needed another take.

"Look at that," Emmett marveled, pointing at the part where I had clasped her hands up by the headboard. "Your most passionate work, yet, bro. There won't be one girl in the theater that's not squirming in her seat."

"Just what I always wanted," I said sarcastically. "Teenage girls squirming in their chairs wanting me to be fucking _them_ instead of Victoria."

"Teenage girls have been wanting that from you for years. This will just give them more footage of what it might be like to achieve the impossible dream."

If the subject matter wasn't so disturbing, I might have laughed. No, scratch that. If I still knew how to laugh, I might have laughed.

For two weeks straight, I had poured myself into my acting, perfecting my character as much as possible, trying to forget everything else going on in my life or trying to at least drown it all out. Trying being the operative word.

I hadn't succeeded.

Because every kiss with Victoria sent me spiraling into a kiss with _her_. Every "I love you" tore what was left of my heart thanks to _her_ into even smaller pieces. Emmett had just said it was my most passionate work yet, but all I felt was anger on the inside not passion. Anger for what _she_ had taken from me. Anger for what _she_ did. Anger for making me angry.

Somewhere along the way I had bridled that anger into an intensity usable for the scenes we had left, and everybody was noticing a difference from the steadicam operator to the key grip. According to them, a fire had been lit under my ass, and I was now giving it my all. They could call it whatever they wanted. I just...didn't know what else to do anymore.

I slept. I woke. I worked. I drove. I ate. I read.

All of it added up into a never ending cycle, one that took up time and got me from one day to the next. It was too bad that when I was sleeping, I awoke to my arms hugging a pillow that I thought was her. When I worked, I saw her in Emmett's director's chair out of the corner of my eye writing in her notebook. On top of that, no drive was as entertaining without Van Morrison playing in the background and no book didn't remind me of shelf after shelf of books in her store. And no meal _ever_ tasted as good as hers.

"Hey, Edward?" Emmett said, breaking me out of my thoughts. "You up for dinner tonight after your meeting with Jane?"

"What did you have in mind?" I asked absentmindedly while I studied storyboards.

"I was thinking maybe Providence over on Melrose."

My right eyebrow rose on its own accord. "Providence? Hell, we could fly to Providence, Rhode Island, for what we'd spend there for dinner. Seems a little high-end for you, Emmett. I mean, you have to use silverware – _real silverware_ – and you have to use certain forks for certain dishes. You sure you don't want to grab In-N-Out or something?"

"I can be high-end if I want to be," he scoffed. "Anyways, _douche,_ I thought it would be a nice change of pace. Neither of us have eaten that well since we came back. It could be something special. A celebration of sorts. Mark the end of an era."

I stared at him appraisingly. _End of an era?_ He didn't appear to have any contusions on his head and his eyes seemed to be in focus, but that didn't necessarily rule out a concussion one hundred percent. "Did you hit your head on the boom mic again?"

"Just come to dinner tonight," he huffed. "I already have a reservation for eight o'clock. I'll have your _ass_ for dinner if you stand me up. I can promise you that."

After poking his finger into the crease between my chest and shoulder, obviously demanding my presence, he announced that we were done for the day and then turned around and stalked off toward the exit while checking his watch.

That was... odd. Emmett was usually one of the last people out of the studio, and I knew that because I was usually leaving with him, avoiding going back to an empty house where I found things to do besides sleeping and waking and eating and reading.

Like thinking. I didn't like thinking. Because I thought about_ her_. Always _her_.

* * *

"Come in!" Jane announced from inside her office after I rapped three times on the door. By now, it was a given why she had called me earlier to come over. It had been the same thing time and time again since I'd come back. So when I entered, it was with trepidation. Sitting behind her desk as I closed the door behind me, she was feverishly organizing stacks of magazines, papers and what looked like hundreds of pieces of mail held together with rubber bands.

"You look busy," I noted, sitting down in the chair directly across from her.

"I _am_ busy. For someone who's quitting, you keep me very busy."

I sighed and rested back into the chair far enough that I was staring up at the ceiling. "I know why you asked me to come in, but can we not go over this again? _Please?_"

"For now," she sighed. "You're in luck because I needed you to come in for a few reasons actually, not just that. First, we need to confirm schedules for the LA premiere and the New York premiere."

Pulling out my phone, I checked my calendar which I'd become very anal about keeping up to date. Before, I relied on Jane to fax or email me the information to get me from one event to the next, but these days I was looking for absolutely anything to keep me occupied and keep my mind off other things. "Looks like I've got the one here this Saturday and New York two Thursdays after that."

"And you'll be taking a flight with Tanya to New York before I meet up with you later that day." She opened a drawer in her desk and handed me an envelope with my plane ticket and a typed out schedule. "This is a multi-day trip because of other promotions. You'll be flying out on Wednesday and won't return until Friday. And then we've got you on Jimmy that night. You'll film it a few hours early so they can edit, but you've done enough of those to understand the logistics."

Scratching my head, I input the information and silently groaned that I'd have to be in close proximity to Tanya again and for such a large amount of time. It would be an understatement if I said I'd been dreading these upcoming events, but it was for much, much different reasons than before.

Tanya had been silent, never even calling me once since James had been killed, despite our upcoming commitments. He was her former boyfriend and in a round about way, he was dead because of my actions. I could accept that there was something wrong with James because no sane person would take it to the extent he did after he found out about what was going on behind his back, but I did harbor some guilt. If I'd have never slept with her, he never would have had anything to find out about and none of this would have happened.

Saturday with her at the premiere would be a challenge, but I was going to try to put on my best face in an attempt of not upsetting her since we'd have to do this all over again in a couple of weeks for even longer. Since I hadn't heard from her, it was very possible that she was having a difficult time handling the news. Maybe the best thing was for me to try to be nice to her for a change. Despite her betrayal with me, she may have loved him deep down inside.

"Tanya is joining you on Jimmy, too," Jane said. "The studio wanted you to do mainly joint promotions for this film since you're the two hottest actors in Hollywood right now and they're expecting big box office numbers from the female sector. The producer of the show will have you on first followed by her. Then that will end your busy promotions tour for that film, and you'll only have your current film left before you're officially retired."

In eight months, I would have absolutely nothing to do. When I woke each day, I'd have to find more things than usual to fill my time before it was acceptable to fall asleep again. A normal job would be a good substitute, but I had no formal education into anything specific, and I had no clue what would even interest me. It was as if I was a new high school graduate about to embark on the college adventure completely scared and alone and unsure of who they were.

It didn't help that at one time there was a well thought-out plan, one that made me smile and feel like I was going to be doing something important, but now there was nothing. Because of _her_. Everything was ruined because of _her_.

"Okay," I murmured.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jane lift her head from studying the sheet of paper in front of her and smile sadly. "I'm always here if you need to talk, Edward. I don't always have to be your manager and your publicist. Haven't we established that?"

Shaking my head while looking down at my lap, I didn't say anything.

Her hand stretched across the desk and softly touched mine in comfort. "It doesn't have to be over, Edward."

My head snapped up automatically, and I started rambling before it even registered what she meant. "It _is_ over. She doesn't love me. Do I have to tell everybody what happened, or can I not just wallow in my own anger alone? Isn't it enough that I think about it all of the time even when I'm trying not to and wonder what I did wrong here and what I did wrong there without having to tell everybody I know plus everybody that I don't know that I'm the dumbest man on the face of the planet for falling in love so hard without even a bit of hesitation? I mean, fuck, why can't I ever let my mind rest?"

I ended my rant huffing in oxygen because I hadn't taken a single breath the entire time I was speaking. Jane's eyes were wide in surprise, and once I'd calmed down enough that my breathing was normal, she continued.

"Well, I meant your career, but I guess that's a pretty good start on getting you to talk to me. Feel free to let it all out." She emphasized this with a breezy waving of her hands in front of her like it was that easy.

Leaning forward, I placed my face in my palms and rubbed and stretched the skin trying to relax. Talking was the last thing I wanted to do. Saying it out loud was worse than thinking about it, and thinking about it was pretty bad.

"No?" she inquired. "Suit yourself. Anyways, that was another one of the reasons I called you in here."

A shifting of paper caused me to lift my head where I followed her hand laying a bunch of magazines out in front of me one-by-one so that I could see their covers. They all had photos of me back in town next to photos of _her _from before_, _and they all had similar headlines questioning the status of our relationship. Each one wondered why she wasn't with me and they commented on how my 'body language' hinted at irritation.

I wonder what could have given them that idea? Was it my constant brooding? How about how I flipped off the paparazzi every single time I saw them following me?

Irritation? Definitely. But that was only the tip of the iceberg.

"What do you want me to do about this?" Jane asked.

Placing my hand over my mouth in contemplation, I thumbed through the pages seeing photos of our time together from the very beginning up to the night it all came crashing down in the bookstore. One inside source said that we were happy and only apart because of my job while another said that I had cheated and had left to come back to LA to be with the new woman.

The lies would never end unless the truth came from me.

"Tell them," I whispered.

"What do you want me to tell them?"

I sighed and stacked the magazines back together on her desk one on top of the other before pushing them toward her. I didn't want to see them anymore. "It's over. She and I are no longer together, and we would appreciate it if they would respect our privacy."

"You know that is the last thing they'll do, don't you? You've never had to deal with something like this before, and you've had a lot of newsworthy things hit you over the past month. It's like a feeding frenzy right now, and it is only the beginning."

"I realize that," I said after a deep breath. "But hopefully it's the beginning of the end."

Once Jane was done writing down what she needed, she reached across her desk and plopped a large booklet of paper in front of me. I sat there and stared, recognizing it immediately. I'd held it in my hands before and had shoved it back at her before she stormed out of the car.

"The part is still yours if you want it," she stated, pointing at the script. "Last chance. As I told you before, the role was written for you, and they're saying it's your Academy Award. Not just the nomination this time – the actual win. The story is beautiful, and two members of the supporting cast are Oscar winners themselves. It's the part you've dreamed of since you began, Edward."

Capital letters of the simple name of the new film graced the front cover of the script that I'd turned down previously – turned down because I had a different plan. I was moving to Forks to be happy and live the life of someone that wasn't in the spotlight. All I needed was the woman of my dreams by my side, and I was set. I needed nothing else. Not an important career. Not dozens of people behind the scenes making sure I was where I was supposed to be at a certain time. Not even the money.

But what I needed back then was not what I needed now because it wasn't an option anymore. And as the days stretched on with no communication to the contrary, that fact was becoming more and more apparent.

"It's supposed to start filming in two months in the Caribbean. It's a long shoot – four months because of the complexity and sheer number of people in the film. But it's going to be amazing."

I picked up the script and flipped through the pages quickly, assessing how long it would take me to read. "When do they need to know?"

Looking at her desk calendar, she said, "Friday at the latest. They already know you've rejected the part once, and they're holding out as long as they can, but there is another actor that they've got in mind and they're in a time crunch with him." She paused for a few moments while I processed what she said but went on after I nodded. "So, what can I tell them?"

I'd been acting for a decade and not until I'd met _her_ had I gotten a glimpse at what happiness was supposed to be, and that's when I realized that what I had been doing wasn't it. Maybe this happiness I thought I was chasing after was all a scam, though. It was possible that happiness was only a facade and it truly didn't exist. _She_ had put up a facade for so long feigning a good life when in reality she was in so much pain on the inside that her soul had been chipped away until she no longer had one. At least somebody that had one wouldn't have done what she did to me.

And how many times did one person get a supposed dream role handed to them? Here I was at twenty-seven and this part had literally dropped right in my lap. I didn't have to audition. I didn't have to wait anxiously for the call. Actors dreamed of something like this their entire careers, and I had it already. Right here. Within reach. Within my fingertips.

I knew that I had two options in front of me. The first was to turn it down a final time and be miserable at home alone with no job and no purpose, and the second was to take it and be miserable with a job but still no purpose. I didn't know which was better.

"Can I read it and call you on Friday?" I asked.

The brightness of her whitened teeth nearly blinded me as the huge grin spread across her face. "Really?" she beamed. "You're going to give it a chance?"

I nodded, and her smile grew even larger.

"Thank you," she whispered, almost with tears in her eyes. "You're so talented. I hated to see you give up this opportunity."

"I didn't say yes," I was quick to correct. "I said I'd give it consideration. No promises."

She tried to calm down the painful-looking grin, but she wasn't very successful. I could still see the exultation in her eyes. Jane had been there since the beginning. She'd seen the potential in me from the start, and she was proud of how far I'd come in such a short time relatively speaking. It hurt to tell her that I was quitting, but at the time it was the best for me. Now what was best for me was up in the air, but I hoped by Friday I would figure it out.

As soon as I stood from the chair to head home so that I could get ready for dinner with Emmett, she took the stacks of mail that were rubber banded together and dropped them in my hands. "Fan mail," she stated. "This is everything that came here and everything that those little freaks sent to your house. I'll never understand how they get your home address, but they do."

I smiled for the first time since I'd walked in her door. "Those _freaks,_ as you call them, are very resourceful. At least only a handful have showed up outside the gate. But, I guess they're no real harm. Just a few girls trying to have a good time. If I can make their lives complete by posing in a picture or signing something, then I'll do it."

"Isn't that sweet of you," she teased. "Anyways, we took care of your bills while you were away as stated in your contract, but please go get the forwarding address to my office off. I'm tired of getting your mail."

"Yes, ma'am," I saluted awkwardly, almost dropping all of them. "The difficult part is going to be deciding when to start on these. Now, while I have so much time on my hands, or in a few weeks when I have even more time." Balancing the heaps of mail in my arms, I turned around and headed for the exit.

"Hey, Edward," Jane stopped me before I was all the way out the door. Sticking my head back in, she said, "I won't release your statement until after the Los Angeles premiere so you're not hounded with that shit so badly on the red carpet."

I nodded sadly. "Thank you. I'll call you on Friday with my decision."

* * *

If this were say, the seventeen hundreds, and such things as Aston Martin Rapides existed back then, the two valet attendants would have had a duel in the middle of Melrose Avenue to see who would get to drive my car around back. The two guys, obviously working here to pay their way through college or to pay for some sort of unnecessary plastic surgery, nearly ate my hand off to get to the keys first. Their eyes were ravenous when I had pulled up, like blood-thirsty vampires hunting their latest unsuspecting human.

Maybe I should have worried as the overly-tanned, overly-primped one jumped in the car and whooped before peeling out of the spot in front of the restaurant, but I really didn't give a damn. I probably would have a few months ago, but now I realized that it was just a car. It was replaceable. Unlike some things.

As soon as I entered the door, I was greeted by the maitre d' who immediately escorted me toward a table near the back where Emmett was already seated. Being that it was a Monday night, the restaurant wasn't completely packed but packed enough that a handful of patrons recognized me and gasped. Ignoring the commotion as best I could, I focused my attention on the table and the fact that it was set for three and not just two.

"Who's joining us?" I asked as I sat down, pointing at the extra wine glass and place setting arranged in between us. "Aro?"

Emmett grimaced and then quickly looked up at someone walking toward us in loud high heels over my right shoulder. His face, this worried twisting, was enough to make me freeze in place. I needed to swallow or breathe or blink or something, but I couldn't. A few possibilities flitted through my mind that would make him react this way when I asked who it was, but they all came back to one. Please not _her._

"Good to see you again, Edward," the female spoke behind me, and my blank expression quickly changed to a glare.

"Don't look at me like that," Emmett snapped quietly. "She's my fucking wife, and she has every right to be here just as much as you."

Tall, blonde and gorgeous Rosalie Hale-Cullen strutted around to my side in her magenta dress and black heels and Emmett stood to pull her chair out while leaning in to kiss her cheek. In a last-second attempt to block their affectionate display that gutted me more than I wished it had, I diverted my eyes to the pristine tablecloth. The throbbing ache that was always in the pit of my stomach, making sure I never could forget my pain, rose up into my throat making me choke on it.

I needed water.

"Did you find the restroom okay?" he whispered.

"Yes, I did. Thank you, baby," she answered. She turned her attention to me and cocked her head to the side. "You don't seem entirely pleased to see me, Edward, or am I imagining that?"

My fists clenched instinctively out of pure desperation for some kind of control on my emotions, and I shook my head trying my best to calm down. "No, it's good to see you, Rosalie. It's just a surprise. Emmett didn't tell me that you'd be joining us in LA."

"Yes," she smiled. "I flew in earlier this evening."

Well that explained his mad dash out of the studio at the end of the day, but it didn't explain why he didn't tell me ahead of time. It would have been nice to know that one of the things that would remind me of _her_ the entire evening, one of _her_ best friends, would be showing up. I would have liked the chance to come up with an emergency that couldn't be avoided.

She cleared her throat. "I had some free time in my schedule and planned this little trip to help Emmett organize the apartment so he can move some of it to Forks once filming is done in a few weeks. The bigger move won't be as awful once post-production is done if we do some of the busy work now."

"You're moving to Forks?" I asked him quickly in an unnaturally high tone. The aching pit was back up in my throat.

"I don't know why you're surprised," he said incredulously. "I'm keeping the apartment here with the bare minimums, but I kind of would like to live in the same place as my wife. If I need to leave to do a film, I'll leave to do a film, but she's got a well-established practice in Forks, and the last thing I want to do is take her away from that to where she'd have to start from the ground up."

I swallowed thickly unsure of what to say to this. If I was honest with myself, it all made sense and I should have expected it. He was married and in love and devoted to her. She was successful, and so was he, but he could live wherever he wanted most of the year. Rosalie on the other hand relied on her patients and their referrals, and their lives wouldn't have to change that much if they lived in Forks. This was obviously the most logical option for them.

But what about me? I wanted that. I wanted the house and the happiness. Why couldn't _I_ make the sacrifice for the one that I loved? Why did _she_ have to take it all away with her heartlessness? Why did all of that shit have to happen?

"Something the matter?" Rosalie asked, instantly dissolving the rage boiling up inside of me that was threatening to explode out of me. "You're looking a little pale, Edward."

"I'm sorry," I breathed, closing my eyes. "Pay no attention to me."

"What is it?" she asked.

The corner of my mouth lifted in an attempt to diffuse the awkwardness, but I think it only made me look sadder. "Only me being selfish. I know you'll be very happy." _Just like I would have been..._

Right at the perfect moment, the waiter approached the table and presented us with our menus. Emmett insisted on buying the meal portion while I insisted on covering the alcohol because I knew that I would consume a lot of it to get through the evening without feeling like I wanted to rip my hair out by the roots with the real or imaginary tension transmitting from both Emmett and Rosalie.

Course after beautiful and delicious course were presented in front of us in spectacular fashion from yellowfin tuna to sea urchin in an eggshell, and the wine pairings flowed just as freely. Glasses of different shapes and sizes were filled by the sommelier with wines ranging from red to blush to white, and they were emptied in what felt like quicker time that they'd been poured. Emmett and I both indulged while Rosalie only drank the samples as a way to keep tabs on both of us.

Dinner had been tolerable thanks to all of the wine impairing my attention span. Our conversation was relaxed and light, never crossing into the area that I was expecting it to. We discussed the movie and our immediate families, but nothing else that sent me into a panic mode. That was until dessert.

"Here we have a delightful crème brulee to start off the dessert portion of your meal," the waiter stated as he rested the small white dishes on the table in front of each of us. Emmett and Rosalie both eagerly grabbed their spoons and dug in as soon as he walked away. I sat there staring at it. Crème brulee. Of course.

"Do you not like it?" Rosalie asked, leaning toward me talking slowly for my benefit, the dish sweet on her breath and wafting softly into the air around me. I stiffened and cut off my air supply trying not to be sent back to _that_ night, but it was too late. I couldn't stop it even if I tried. The wheels had been instantly set in motion, and I was already there.

_Her dessert-sweetened tongue played with mine as I pressed her body into the chaise lounge of the private room, desperate for her heat to envelope every inch of my body. We swayed and bucked and moaned seeking release through our clothing. Every curve of her waist and hips felt like butter in my hands as I kneaded her flesh, eager for her skin on my skin._

_In our drunken haze, I didn't care about where we were. Scores of people chatted and dined below, but we were above and alone, behind a closed door, and she was under me and inviting me in with every one of her movements._

_There was one thing and one thing only that I desired. One thing that I needed. And if it were mine to give, I would have given the world for it._

"_I want you," I breathed into her mouth as our lips brushed._

_Her hooded eyes batted slowly, heavy with the alcohol, and then locked with mine as her fingertips dragged fire-hot trails through my shirt onto my chest, over my heart. My heart that she had stolen in an instant not so long before._

"_I'm yours."_

My hand came slamming down on the table making every piece of stemware and silverware rattle and jump off the tablecloth briefly. Emmett and Rosalie both jumped in surprise and stared at me like I was crazy.

"What the hell was that all about?" Emmett whisper-yelled, darting his eyes around at the people that now had their scrutinizing eyes on me. He was embarrassed, and rightly so, but I didn't care. Pushing my chair back forcefully, sending a shrieking sound through the restaurant, I practically ran for the front door desperate for air that didn't remind me of _her_.

As soon as the doors opened, I greedily inhaled the polluted air into my lungs like it was a drug and was about to bend forward to place my hands on my knees for the support I desperately needed when I heard the sound of the doors opening roughly behind me again.

"Explain what that was!" Emmett practically shouted before they even had time to close. As expected, the two valet attendants stopped their conversation on who was the most famous celebrity they'd ever met to zero in on our heated discussion.

"I can't," I strained, spinning in place looking frantically for somewhere to sit.

"Try," he demanded, stopping me from my useless turning in search of a nonexistent bench. His massive fingers dug into the fronts and backs of my shoulders holding me still, keeping me in front of him so that I couldn't avoid him.

"You know what this is about," I groaned. "What is it always about?"

"Bel-"

"Don't!" I yelled, cutting him off. "Do not say her name!"

"Bella." Our heads turned quickly to see Rosalie standing smugly outside the entrance pulling her long hair out of her black leather jacket she'd just put on. "You would think that you'd be able to say her name considering how much you love her, Edward."

Emmett released my shoulders, and I slumped forward hearing her name spoken for the first time in two weeks. I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.

"This conversation took longer than I thought it would to come up considering how much alcohol you've had tonight, but it looks like the time has come," Rosalie smirked. "Dinner is paid for. I suggest we get going because you've got a lot of explaining to do, and it's getting late."

The drive to my house was tense as I sulked in the backseat while Emmett gave her directions as best as he could because I refused. This was the last thing I needed after my day. Rosalie could be a hardass when she needed to be, and I wasn't up for hearing anything that she had to say. It wasn't my fault that I was back in LA. The blame resided in her friend.

"Stop acting like a petulant child," Rosalie chided, looking directly at me in the rear view mirror. "Jesus, you constantly rip into Emmett, criticizing how he acts, but you are capable of the same ridiculous behavior."

"Heeeeeey," Emmett whined, obviously drunk because his 'hey' went on a little longer than it needed to.

"I'm not being ridiculous," I tried to say in the most even, sober tone I could muster.

"Drinking yourself into an oblivion because you're too chicken shit to have a grown up discussion about what happened? Storming out of a restaurant after making a scene? Sitting in the backseat with your arms crossed over your chest as your lower lips juts out? I guess you're right. That's not ridiculous at all."

Uncrossing my arms immediately, I sat forward so that I was closer to her three right ears lit by the dashboard lights and street lamps. "Is that sarcasm I detect? Well if it is, I drank because I don't want to talk about it. I stormed out of the restaurant because I don't want to talk about it. I'm sitting in the backseat with my arms crossed over my chest because I don't want to talk about it. Are you sensing a pattern?" Fed up with her antics, I roughly slammed my body back into the seat to make a point.

_Oh yeah. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Rosalie._

Probably not even a second later, I watched as the side of her face changed slightly, and I could easily tell that she was smirking even from where I was sitting. I scowled. Obviously my point had not gotten across as I thought it had.

"That's too damn bad, Edward, because I'm not leaving until you do."

Unfortunately for me, Emmett was unlocking the front door of my house a few minutes later, pulling his bitchy wife inside with her hand in his as I unwillingly followed behind.

"You have a lovely house," she noted, allowing Emmett to pull her jacket off. Her head was angled up, looking around the foyer and up the stairs that were the focal point of the entire entrance. "I'm sure you have so many memories in this room, Edward. Which ones involve Bella?"

_Her standing at the top of the stairs in the most amazing dress I'd ever seen. Placing a gorgeous necklace on her that didn't even come close to rivaling her beauty. Her attacking me with her mouth. Telling her that she was my love and my life and all I wanted and needed after the premiere. Making sure she knew she was the only woman I had ever loved._

"Shut up," I ground out through my clenched teeth, storming toward the dining room hell bent on finding the scotch again. High heels clicked quickly on the hardwood flooring only a few feet behind.

When we entered the room, she gasped and clapped her hands cheerily. "This room is gorgeous, too. Tell me, Edward. Do you have memories of Bella in here?"

_Her crying as Emmett and I fought. Her backing away because she was scared of me. My entire life feeling like it was ending because I felt her slipping away. Me begging and pleading with her, laying my heart out on the line as I peppered her in promises of devotion and marriage even after only a few days together. Her swearing she wasn't ever leaving if we weathered the tough stuff together._

"Stop it, Rosalie, because you're only making me angrier," I growled. Leaning down, I plucked the bottle that hadn't been touched since that horrible night from under the bar and poured a glass.

She set her purse down on the table and plopped into a chair. "Get angry for all I care."

"What the fuck are you wanting to accomplish with this?" I snapped, slamming my empty glass down onto the bar and spinning around. "Since when did you become a psychiatrist, Dr. Hale?"

"To answer your questions, I'm trying to get you to fight, and as soon as I saw what you left behind."

"What I left behind?" I snorted, ignoring the first part because I wasn't about to fight a girl... at least not this girl because she had Emmett on her side, and he was a behemoth and not afraid to jump over tables for a tackle. I knew that firsthand. I also knew how much it hurt, drunk or not. "Do I need to inform you of what happened in the woods when I chased after her? You see, I was willing to give her everything. In fact, I _had_ given her everything. It's not my fault she didn't want it."

"Speaking of that, wonderful timing to tell her you quit acting, Edward. Superb. Wait until she's at the end of her rope and drop a fucking bomb like that on her. Of all of the smart decisions on this earth, like Custer attacking the Native Americans at Little Bighorn and the Donner Party taking Hastings Cutoff, yours may just be the smartest."

"What?" I shrieked.

"Oh, well if you didn't pay attention in school, Custer's force was pretty much annihilated when he attacked the tribes without waiting for the rest of his cavalry and the Donner Party got stuck during the winter taking this new way to California, and they ended up eating-"

"I know what they ended up eating," I cut her off, swallowing down the bile. The large amount of wine I had at dinner mixed with images of cannibalism nearly had me throwing up. Her explanation could not go any further unless she wanted to be reintroduced to our various meals in not-so-spectacular fashion. "What I meant was, why was it a bad decision? How would things have been different? You do know what she said, don't you?"

"I know exactly what she said, but if you would have told her you quit earlier or waited a few days, everything would have been different."

Groaning, I sat down in the chair next to her. "Again, how? She admitted she never loved me. I could have told her months before when I actually decided to quit, or I could have told her the last night before I came back here. It wouldn't have mattered. She never loved me. She never wanted me to stay."

"You know that's not true."

"Do I?" I contradicted. "What if it was all a lie, and she was only using me to get more famous?"

Rosalie's right hand was resting peacefully on top of the other in one second, and the next second I was rubbing out a sharp stinging sensation around the edge of an area on my left cheek that was the exact size and shape of her right hand.

"How dare you!" she shouted, towering over me. "She loved you then, and she loves you now! You're a fucking prick if you really believe what you just said."

She was pacing now, infuriated by how big an asshole I just was. "Wait until Alice hears this. Holy hell, she's gonna fly her ass to LA and beat the shit out of you, pregnant and all."

"Alice is pregnant?" I asked, remembering how Jasper was rubbing her stomach that day in the living room.

She stopped wearing a path in my floor and came right back up to me, pointing her finger in my face. "Oh yeah she's pregnant, and do you realize that stress on a pregnant woman can be very bad, especially in the first trimester? She's all kinds of worried over Bella and the way that she's barely eating and locking herself away every night after she gets home from work. It was especially bad the first week when she never left the house and only answered the phone to tell us that she was alive. Alice was scared to death that Bella was suicidal, and thankfully she doesn't seem to be, but that kind of pressure is enough to do a normal person in, no less a hormonal and overly emotional one."

I blinked in an effort to make sense of everything. She was locking herself in her house and not eating? They were worried she might have been suicidal? _What?_

"This makes no sense," I whispered. "Why would she be acting like this? She said she didn't-"

"Love you," she finished. "Yeah, yeah. We know. And you're a fucking idiot for believing her."

Finally having enough of my share of being berated, I shot up out of my chair to where I was now towering over her. "She said it! She looked right at me and spoke the words! How am I not supposed to believe her?"

Now Rosalie was really pissed, evident by her pursed lips and furrowed brow, and Emmett, who had been silently sitting back while we politely duked it out, was standing up on the opposite side of the table ready to have me for a second dinner.

"Were you wanting an easy out?" she asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Were you wanting an easy out?" she asked a little slower this time, though I had caught it all when she first said it. "Did you finally realize that Bella wasn't this perfect human being with a perfect past? Was she too much of a hassle to care about anymore, and when she said that she didn't love you, you took that as your chance to bolt leaving us to clean up the mess?"

I could have sworn I saw red creeping in from the corners of my eyes as each disgusting accusation tumbled out of her mouth. How dare _she!_ If she wanted a taste of her own medicine, I'd gladly give it to her, down to the last bitter drop.

Taking a hastened step around her, I stalked out of the dining room and went straight into my office where I clumsily unlocked the safe in my desk and pulled out what I'd gone in there for. When I returned to the dining room, Emmett and Rosalie were standing together now, whispering to each other.

"You're right, Rosalie," I sighed dramatically, picking up right where we left off as if I hadn't left the room. "It wasn't until that fateful day that I saw just how fucked up she was. And that was the day that I realized I wasn't willing to be there for her. I mean, the night that Jake attacked her on the beach and she had a flashback to the car accident to where she thought I was her father rescuing her – that wasn't enough to make me see that she was troubled. And the day that we found her hiding in her library, sick and scared, after Jake had gone to the house to kill her? That didn't do it either. Oh, and the day that we went to this secret place of hers and she had a breakdown about her mother's death? No, she was still perfect in my eyes then, too. She was so goddamn perfect back then that when I came back to LA for a couple of days, I had to buy this."

Loudly pounding my hand down on the dining room table, I lifted it to reveal that I'd left a small black velvet box there in its place. Rosalie stared wide-eyed at the box, then at me, and then back to the box.

"Is that...?" she breathed.

"An engagement ring?" I concluded. "Yes, it's an engagement ring. But when I finally saw how much of a 'hassle' she was to care for, to quote you, I couldn't stomach giving it to her. Thank God those times that I tried to propose were interrupted by nosy waiters and crazed murderers. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to break off an engagement, especially with it being her second."

"Did she know you had this?" she whispered, shaking her head in awe. It was obvious that Rosalie understood what I meant. I had put time and effort into our relationship from the very beginning, and while I knew that she wasn't perfect, it didn't diminish how much I loved her. Not at all.

"Of course she didn't know that I'd bought this. She knew I wanted to marry her because I'd told her before, but does it matter anymore? She made it very clear that it was over between us."

"It's not, Edward. It's never been over. You need to fight like you always have. Fight for the love that you think is gone. Fight for her. Just fight."

I raised my head to look her directly in the eyes, finally defeated. "Fight for somebody that doesn't want me?"

"How can you believe her when she laid it all out for us when she broke down in the living room? She told you that she was willing to die in your place. Can you not see the power behind that? That is love."

"I thought I felt that love," I said, walking over to the bar again and pouring another glass. "Every touch and kiss felt genuine with her, but it also felt genuine when she told me that she never loved me. I saw her eyes and the hollowness in them. That was the same way she looked at me at the hospital and at the house before all of that went down. She had distanced herself instantly, and I don't know if it was because of the danger I had put her in, or if she finally realized she wasn't willing to put up with the lifestyle I was accustomed to, but we were no longer one."

After taking a long drink, I took a deep breath. "I've tried to convince myself that she does still love me, but I can't recall one time from the bookstore incident on that she told me she did. Not one single time."

"Edward-" she breathed. I could hear that she knew she was losing this struggle. Maybe Emmett really was moving to Forks, but Rosalie came here for much different reasons than to help him pack. I wasn't stupid. She came here to make me go back to Forks and try to fix the situation. She wanted me to be the one to do it.

Dipping my head, I exhaled loudly. "Rosalie, imagine yourself the angriest you could ever be at Emmett. I don't know what it is that he could do that would put you in that place of devastation, but believe it to be real just for one moment."

There was silence behind me as I held myself up with my arms on the top of the bar. All of my strength was fading after the long and emotional day that I had endured, and the alcohol was dragging me down. When she didn't respond, I asked, "Are you in that place?"

"Yes," she whispered almost instantly.

"You don't have to tell me what he's done. That can be your secret."

"Okay."

"He's hurt you so deeply that there is nothing he can do to fix the damage that he's caused. You're standing there staring at him, and he's staring at you, and he's begging forgiveness for whichever offense. And then he tells you that he loves you. You're conflicted because you can't possibly understand how he could love you after what he did. Somebody that loves you wouldn't do that. But you can't fight off the memories that you made together from the first day you met up until the second before this happened. You were happy at one time, and you trusted him."

I could hear the rustling of her hair on her dress, so I knew that she was nodding.

"The pain you feel inside is excruciating. You want to fall to your knees and cry it out even though you know that's not possible. And this is where I ask, could you stand there and tell him that you never loved him just to hurt him? Could you deny yourself that happiness because he's taken your current happiness away in an instant? Could you say those words knowing it wasn't the truth?"

Turning around, I saw her staring at me, and I knew her answer before she even spoke it. The tears in her eyes told me. Her quivering chin backed it up. All pointed to...

"No," she whispered. "I couldn't."

"Telling someone that you don't love them is just as powerful as telling someone you do. It crushes a soul. It crushed mine. Every fear of why she had been pulling away from me came to a head. Maybe I'm at fault, and she resented me for everything that I put her through by being directly linked to me. I don't know. But she said what she said, essentially reversing every happy memory together into one where I question what we really had. Trust is lost. You can stand here and tell me that she still loves me, but I have to hear it from her. I have to see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. As you can probably guess, I haven't gotten that reassurance, therefore the hope is fading. All I'm left with is anger in the place of that love because I don't want to feel sad, yet. Sadness is worse than anger. Sadness is when I lose my mind."

Unable to look at them any longer, I turned back around. "I'm not sure I could see her again, though, Rosalie. The fear that I wouldn't see love reflected in her eyes haunts me. There would be nothing of me left if I saw that same hollowness. Nothing... Not that there's much of me left anyways."

Neither of them said anything after that. I wasn't sure if they completely understood what I was feeling, but they had been affected by my reasoning. I had loved her, and I still loved her, but that was where it ended. No love was returned as far as I could tell, and that was enough to keep me where I was.

When I poured another drink for myself, both Rosalie and Emmett held out their hands for their own, and I gladly gave each of them one. Drinking alone was never fulfilling. Hoisting our glasses in the air, I looked directly at Emmett and gave the toast. "To the end of an era."

* * *

Friday came fast after that. Jane had been calling all day expecting my answer on whether I was going to take the part or not, and I had been ignoring as I read through the script. I didn't want the distraction.

The film was absolutely brilliant. I couldn't deny it that distinction. The screenplay was more intelligent and eloquent than any other movie with which I'd had the privilege to be the lead, and because of that, I knew the Oscar buzz was well-deserved.

The character written for me was a doctor in the states that loses his entire family in a car accident – his wife and two children – and after a year of grieving, he sells everything he owns and moves to a Caribbean island on a impulse to get away from the memories.

When he gets there, he realizes that there is a desperate need for doctors, and shortly after setting up a clinic, the country is hit by a devastating earthquake that sends thousands of the injured to his doorstep, and he has to cope with running out of supplies and his own demons as the chaos begins to send him back to the night that his family died, and that's when you realize that he was the driver of the car and the lone survivor.

It wasn't a story of finding new love and happiness. It was a story of a man that had lost everything and fought through tragedy after tragedy to finally find the new 'him' in this new life without his family. His courage and strength to help others even though he wanted to quit had pulled him through some of the darkest hours of his life, and in the end, the viewer is left with an understanding that though he may not be happy, he was at peace and knows that helping people overcome all kind of various obstacles is what he was meant to do for the rest of his life.

Though not a true feel-good movie, especially with all of the gore that was sure to be present, there was hope. Hope that some day he may find love again. Hope that happiness may find him on that beach. Hope that good things were coming his way. And that was the reason why they named the film what they did. _Hope._

I knew what I was going to do as soon as I closed the script and saw the title again. My foundation had been rocked by this fictional earthquake, and I never saw it coming. Maybe I wouldn't find true happiness, but this was a step in the right direction toward some semblance of contentment.

Reaching over to the charging station on my desk, I grabbed my cell phone and dialed her number. I'd been avoiding this call for far too long, and now I finally had a reason to make it.

The phone picked up on the other end, and I heard, "Hello? Edward is that you?"

I smiled just a little. "Yes, mom. It's me. Have you got a while? I need to talk to you about something."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

**Again, I got bored and made Rosalie's restaurant outfit. It's in my profile.  
**

Let me guess. You're wondering what in the hell Edward is doing calling Esme? I want to hear your ideas because I love to see how you all analyze the clues I've given you. Exciting stuff is ahead! I promised you that I wouldn't make this time apart boring.

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**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	29. Chapter 29 Please

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language**, violence, lemons

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First, I want to apologize for taking so long this time. My grandma has been sick and is now in a nursing home. Even though I love this story and updating, my family will always come first. I'm so to those that were frustrated with me.

Stepping away from the sad stuff, I want to share something totally mind-blowing.** dare-to-breath** is incredibly talented at making videos, and she has made a _**TRAILER**_ for my story! I'm in awe. It's gorgeous. Here's the link: **http:/www[.]youtube[.]com/watch?v=im1aiU90UgU **which is also in my profile. WOW! It's a beautiful thing what people are willing to do for me. I don't feel like I deserve it.

Also, check out the link in my profile for my **AUTHOR ****INTERVIEW**! It was so much fun! Maybe you'll find out something new! :)

* * *

I have several new songs this chapter:** http:/www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

There are a couple not on playlist, so here are those links: **http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=JTuCInbXnk0&feature=related** and **http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=jjduiPDnHB4&feature=search**

**

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CHAPTER 29**

**Please**

My fingertips skimmed the smooth, unbroken spine of a new book as I placed it on the shelf. Then I placed another. Then another. In alphabetical order by author, by subject.

I was next to the front windows, in the history section now, which I'd saved for last. Visages of Abraham Lincoln stared at me from the front, while visages of photographers outside my bookstore stared at me from the left.

Today was the third day in a row that they'd been out there, and it didn't take any more than stepping one foot outside to know why they felt the need to bother me again.

"_Can you comment on Edward confirming that your relationship is over?" _they shouted in one mass of nonsense noise still not loud enough to drown out the clicking of their intrusive cameras.

Even the words "no comment" were too difficult to say as I struggled to maneuver through them, whether to my car or Alice's store, without having a panic attack. So now I stayed inside until I had to leave.

If I sat, they took pictures. If I stood, they took pictures. If I breathed, walked, helped a customer... they took pictures. Every inane movement was fodder, every lack of movement was just as interesting, and every facial expression was frozen in time. I guess not _every _expression. Just the one. Photos really didn't freeze it, as it was stuck there from the second I woke up until the second I fell asleep again.

Taking a ragged breath, fighting back a new wave of tears, I aligned the new books with the old books so that they were perfectly straight and then stood as I dusted off my hands on my pants. Just then, the bell jingled over my door and before I had time to turn around, a familiar voice called my name.

"Bella Swan."

I spun around quickly, gasping, to see a man standing by the door, wearing an uncomfortable looking back brace around his torso on the outside of his t-shirt and a huge cast on his arm.

"Seth," I breathed, shocked that he was standing in front of me. "What are you doing here? I called. I went by. The hospital said there was no record of you. I thought you'd been released and had gone home. I felt so bad, but I had no way of getting ahold of you. The least I could have done was go by the hospital, and I didn't get to even do that. Here, sit down."

I ran up to the couch and adjusted the pillows trying to make a comfortable place for him to get off of his feet, but he swatted my hands away as he awkwardly squatted and angled his upper body to take over.

"Let me do that, and please, take a breath, Bella. No need to get worked up. I've actually been in the hospital until they discharged me today. A couple days after my surgery, a photographer was able to gain access to my room, so my lawyer had my name taken off the patient directory, and though I asked him to put you and Edward on the approved list, he obviously did not."

"Oh," I muttered, batting down the ache of hearing my name together with Edward's as if we were still a couple.

"So," he said after he very slowly lowered himself down onto the cushions. "How are you doing?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that? You're the one that's being held together with plastic and plaster because of me."

Rolling his eyes, he blew me off. "Nope. You go first. Then I'll answer. I've been wondering about you since I woke up from surgery. Edward and I didn't get to talk for very long on the phone that one day he called."

Shrugging, I searched for the best answer. _I'm here, and he's there? I'm here when there were so many reasons over the years why I shouldn't be? I'm here... alone... and this is the most alone I've ever felt..._

There was no easy way to answer that question without the fear of losing it in front of him when I should be the one consoling him after his horrific injuries, so I murmured the common denominator.

"I'm here."

"So Edward is back in Los Angeles?" he asked, not picking up on my sadness. "They have to be done filming in Forks by now."

"Yeah," I whispered, clearing my throat. "He's been gone for almost four weeks."

When the truth actually left my mouth instead of just passing through my thoughts, I about threw up. The first two weeks alone were a time-warped blur, sending me in an out of reality and dream, but the most recent two weeks had been anything but that. Every single second had felt like ten, and by the time the sun set, the sturdy hold on my emotions was gone. Not having any other choice, though, I fought against this breakdown, waiting until I was able to crawl into bed before I let the tears fall. And there I stayed until I fell asleep with sticky trails down my cheeks.

"I see _they_ didn't leave with him," Seth grumbled, jerking his thumb toward the windows.

I nodded as I glanced over and and met their feasting eyes. "My pain is their pleasure. It always has been."

I didn't know why I was being so vague with Seth, not even hinting that Edward and I were no longer together. He'd find out eventually – probably as soon as he left.

"I'm sorry about everything, Bella," he sighed. "Don't ever think that I'm proud of being a part of that out there."

"You don't need to apologize. It was your job." There was no reason for him to feel bad. Maybe the majority of them were willing to do whatever they had to do to pry into my life, but he was not like them. He'd proven that to me countless times.

"Not anymore," he snorted. "I'm done. I think it's time to take my talents elsewhere."

"You're quitting?" I gasped.

"Quitting. Running away screaming. Whatever you want to call it. All I know is that I was never meant for that kind of job. It made me feel dirty."

Falling back into my chair, my mouth popped open a few times before I could formulate a response. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm thinking about going home to Jacksonville to open a photography studio. You know, have people _want_ me to take their picture. I really don't know at this point, but I like having options. It makes me happy."

"So you're happy?" I asked incredulously. "You're fine with all of this?" How could he be? His life was turned upside down to where he was practically starting over. New job. New home. New worries. There was so much uncertainty.

"I'm fine, Bella. Better than fine. This was the coolest thing to ever happen to me."

"Excuse me?" I sputtered.

"Look at it how I do. I sustained a broken back and an incredibly gnarly broken arm in the same second, and here I am! I'm essentially a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with this tortoise shell around my midsection, and I've got metal holding my bones together. If that's not the definition of a badass, I don't know what is."

A weird noise and a burst of air escaped my mouth, and my eyes widened slightly in response. Was that...did I just laugh?

"You're not angry?" I asked.

"Well, yeah. I'm pissed that I didn't get to try out my moves. My kung fu is strong, Bella."

"No, Seth," I shook my head. "I mean, angry with _me_. Look what happened to you because of me."

Sitting forward as best as he could, blinking in what looked like confusion, he took my hand. "You think I'm angry with you? You think you're to blame? None of this was your fault, and I certainly don't regret helping you, if that's what you mean about me being angry with you. Not one bit. I knew something was wrong, and you've always stuck up for me, even when I probably didn't deserve it, and I wanted to be there for you. I'm just thankful that I heard what I heard no matter what happened. If you think for even one second that I would have done it any other way, you're wrong."

"But-" I began to interrupt, but he was there to stop me from getting any farther.

"No buts, Bella. Because of you, I'm happy for the first time in years. I have seen a lot of ugly in Hollywood, and then I met you, and you are such a truly wonderful person. You helped open my eyes in a time when I would have done anything for survival. A job was a job. Every click of the camera was money in my pocket. The feeling of the celebrities on the other side of the lens didn't matter. And, honestly, it wasn't so bad at People because I didn't feel like I was intruding _so_ harshly, but when my first assignment as paparazzi was covering you, I felt sick. Do you see what I'm getting at here?"

Did I? What I thought he was trying to tell me seemed ridiculous. Nobody would want to have to endure the pain he went through for a stranger, and that's what I essentially was to him. We had no real bonds to each other. I was just a girl that he knew, no matter how understanding and accepting I was. He had to be delusional.

"Life is all about choices, and God, I'm going to sound like such a girl here, but Bella, my choices have always seemed flawed up until now, and it's now that I see that they were leading me to the right choice. I'm so grateful for meeting you because everything that occurred was this giant wake-up call that what I was leading was not a good life. Not for me anyways. Now is my chance to make it good. It's a fresh start. So thank you."

With a jingle of the bell, my front door opened again, and I heard the cameras going off as Jasper came walking in. "It's six o'clock, Bella. Time for your evening escort to your car. I had Alice stay down at the store because I don't want her or the baby getting harmed."

"Hi," he said, extending his hand to Seth. "I'm Jasper, Bella's friend."

"I'm Seth," he replied, shaking his hand carefully. "Bella here saved my life."

I began to protest, but Jasper jumped into conversation with him about their shared gnarly injuries, and I sunk into the chair. Seth didn't blame me? He was happy? He was thanking me? Was this even possible? Seth was in the store because of a chain reaction that I'd caused, and his injuries were a direct result of coming inside. _Everything_ was a result of my actions.

But was he telling me that for someone involved, it was for the better? I couldn't wrap my head around that.

"It was great seeing you again, Bella," Seth said as he scooted to the edge of cushion and stood straight up awkwardly. Getting up with him, he gingerly hugged me. "Once I get settled wherever I'm going, I'll give you a call here at the bookstore, and give you an update. I doubt I'll be back for Jake's hearing, or whatever they call it in these situations, since I'm not really needed."

Pulling back, my eyes scrunched together. "What do you mean you're not needed? Don't you have to give a testimony on the stand?"

He shook his head. "I only found out this morning, so I guess you might not have heard, yet, but Jake is taking a plea deal. That means no testimony, no stand and no jury."

"He _what_?" Jasper shouted, his eyes wild. "What is the deal they're giving him?"

Seth put his hands up. "I don't really know any more than that. My lawyer came by the hospital and was just giving me an update. It sounds like this course is much more expedited, though. I doubt it'll be more than a couple weeks before the case goes to the judge."

Jasper was angry. Seth was bitter yet calm. I was... I didn't know what I was. For some reason, I couldn't help but think that prison wasn't really where he belonged at all. The situation disturbed me on so many levels. Jake used to be normal. He laughed and played. He rode his bike up and down the street and made mud pies. Only after the accident, after my decision to do what we did for the sake of our fathers, did he change. Where had that kid gone? In my heart, I knew he was still in there.

But he pointed a gun at someone the night that everything change for everyone involved and pulled the trigger. No matter if it was the culmination of years of suppressed emotion, he'd acted on his anger and took a life.

Though prison was where he would end up for his crimes, I feared that what he needed the most to turn his life around was help.

"Let's go," Jasper whispered, putting a comforting arm around my shoulder as he led me toward the exit.

Seth had already gone outside ahead of us, and just the same as every night before, as soon as I turned around from locking the door, the cameras were within a few feet of my face. The blinding flashes were relentless.

No matter how many times I had endured this invasion of my privacy, I couldn't get used to the sounds. They overtook every thought. I felt hypersensitive. I felt insane. I felt chaotic.

_Clicking. Shouting. Clicking. Shuffling. Clicking. Clicking. Shoving. Rustling. Clicking. Clicking. Clicking._

"Give us a statement, darling! Edward broke his silence!"

"Who broke up with who? Come on! Tell us what the public wants to know and we'll leave you alone!"

"It's the right of the public to know what happened! You dated a celebrity!"

Seth had stopped forcing his way through and was now turned toward me, question filling his gaze. He'd heard. He'd put it together. And just as he was about to mouth something to me, a photographer jumped in front of him and asked a question that made me stop in my tracks.

"Do you have any comment on Edward and Tanya Paul dating again?"

"Tanya?" I whispered as I was taken by complete surprise, not able to control the word from slipping from my mouth as soon as her name had registered.

What I thought was bad before was nothing compared to what happened next. All hell broke loose around us as they converged, circling and pushing. I had just given them what they wanted. In speaking that one name the way I did, I had revealed my sadness, anger, shock and disapproval.

"What do you think of the photos of Edward and Tanya getting close at the LA premiere after-party that leaked today?"

Jasper's hold tightened around my shoulders as he wrapped himself around my body like armor. His protection was too late, though. I was bleeding on the inside. This hurt was excruciating and unlike any I had ever experienced.

"Was Tanya Paul the reason that you broke up?"

"Sources say that they've started sleeping together again! Tell us how that makes you feel!"

"Do you believe he's sleeping with Tanya as a way to hurt you?"

It wasn't until I heard a door slam and the shouts became muffled that I realized I was in my car. Jasper, in an attempt to guard me, had flung his body against my driver's side door and shoved the cameras away one after the other as they pressed against the glass taking hundreds of shots of my face. He couldn't stop those on the passenger side, though, or those standing in front of my car.

"Bella, tell us why you're crying!" they yelled.

Instantly reaching up, I quickly swiped the tears away that had begun silently pouring out of my eyes while I fumbled with the keys in the ignition. I had to get out of there.

The drive home was tedious as I traveled down the winding road, one blind curve here and one gradual hill there, while simultaneously blinking away the sting of fresh wounds. The climb up the stairs to my bedroom seemed like it would never end as each wracking sob tore at my lungs until I could no longer breathe or hold onto anything but my chest as my heart pounded furiously. And the fall onto the cold bathroom floor after throwing up everything in my stomach was anything but relieving as I fought to stay awake... fought to not see the man I knew I would see if I fell asleep. The man that did not belong to me. But I couldn't stop it no matter how hard I battled with my eyelids.

When my body shut down and succumbed to the exhaustion, there he stood directly in front of me next to my bedroom windows. Music played softly in the background, and a bag rested at his feet. His face was always one of joy, but this time it was turned down as he stared at me.

I could feel my legs giving out as they trembled below my throbbing heart, and I knew I only had seconds before I fell to the floor, but I used all of my strength to stay up so that I could say what I needed to say.

In my heart, I knew that he would be happier without me holding him back or keeping him down. In my heart, I knew that in time he would be able to find someone that would make him happier than when he was with me. That was why I did what I did and suffered the way I did after all. This pain I felt every day was all for him to find what I knew he would never have with me. With that, though, I never expected _this_.

"Was this why you announced we broke up?" I whimpered, my voice straining. "Because you found someone?"

His head shook denying it, but I couldn't let him stop me from saying what I needed to.

"I _wanted_ you to," I cried. "I wanted you to be _happy_. But why, Edward? Why did it have to be _her_?"

Just as my legs buckled, he reached out to catch me, and I woke up covered in sweat on the bathroom floor.

* * *

_Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong._

_I've been with you such a long time_

_You're my sunshine_

_And I want you to know_

_That my feelings are true_

_I really love you_

_You're my best friend_

_Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong._

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

"I'm fucking coming!" I growled as I stumbled down the stairs trying to see through my swollen eyes.

"Bella!" three distinct female voices yelled from the other side of the fortress known as my front door.

_Ding dong. Ding dong._

Wresting the door open, I stood there with my hand on my hip in exasperation. "What the hell?" I shrieked, noticing the location of the sun in the sky, knowing that it was way too early for them to be here, let alone for me to be awake... though I hadn't been back to sleep all night. Not after my dream. Not after seeing _him_.

"We have a surprise for you," Angela smiled.

Rosalie drew her hands out from behind her back and held up four small pieces of thick paper fanned out evenly in front of my face. I turned my head sideways to examine them easier.

Squinting my eyes, I read what was printed and then groaned. "I am not going to Seattle tonight."

I tried to shut the door in their faces, but they were much stronger than me, not only due to the fact that it was three against one but because they were well-rested and I was only standing due to my excessive coffee intake.

"That's right," Alice chirped, grabbing my hand. "We're going to Seattle as soon as you get yourself all pretty and packed."

"Packed?" I whined.

"You read what the ticket said," Rosalie stated, taking my other hand to help pull me up the stairs. "The concert starts at eight o'clock. I don't know about you, but do you want to drive all the way home that late at night? We'll come home tomorrow morning."

A whirlwind of activity flitted around me, resulting in the shower being turned on and my clothes being stripped off. No mention was made of why I was still wearing yesterday's clothes, but I saw the question in Alice's eyes as she folded them neatly on the counter.

"Yikes, Bella," Rosalie grimaced. "Razors are your friend." She immediately started digging through my cabinets as I covered up with my hand, and within seconds she produced a fresh one with plastic protector still intact. "Use it, like, all over."

My eyes narrowed. "It's not like anybody has seen it."

"I have, Bella. Good Lord, I have." She shuddered and then shook her head. "Take care of _that_," and she motioned toward my lower half, "and then we'll get going. I predict you'll be ten pounds lighter in what I'm going to guess is about thirty minutes."

I rolled my eyes and then walked into the shower under the stream of steaming water.

"Holler if you need another razor or five!" she exclaimed, and then the door shut silencing their giggles.

When I had finished drying my hair, I walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my torso to find my carry-on bag full of clothes and being zipped up.

"I found those god forsaken sweats," Alice said, raising her eyebrow. "When I was here before, I said I would burn them that day, but I didn't get the chance. They're in my car and ready for their destruction when we get back."

"What about the store?" I asked irritatedly. "I just reopened and now I'm already shutting it down for the weekend."

"Has anybody braved the photographers since they showed back up? Have you had _any_ customers in the past three days?" Angela asked, and I threw a pointed glance at her.

"Well... no," I answered. "But that doesn't mean that they won't today."

"They won't," Angela whispered. "We drove by on the way out here, and the crowd is larger than it has been all week."

"Jasper told me what they said, Bella," Alice whispered even quieter. "They probably saw you crying and-"

"Stop," I interrupted, feeling my throat constricting. "I don't... I don't need reminding."

"Then let's get the fuck out of here!" Rosalie exclaimed. "We'll leave everything including those bastards behind for a few days and let them wonder where you went."

Alice smiled and handed me a pair of jeans and a sweater for the drive and they left me to my own devices while I got dressed. Once again, I knew what they were doing. They were being a little more forward this time, having pretty much admitted without actually saying it that they were getting me away from the memories, but those memories always followed me wherever I went no matter. Seattle would be no different.

I sat on the bed as I zipped up my boot and sighed. It had been just over a month since I'd last been there. _Five weeks._ That was hard to believe. How things had changed in that time period. But, oh how they were so very similar.

Five weeks ago I was sitting in a hotel room staring at Edward asleep in bed. He had whisked me away for my own protection, though I was determined to seal my own fate. I was leaving him, saving him, giving him a chance at living life to its fullest. I was hurting on the inside, crying on the outside, hiding so that he would never know.

Five weeks ago was today and today was five weeks ago, but the only difference was that I still had Edward back then. I still had him to hold me in the morning and kiss me during the day. He was still there to dance away the evening and make love to me until we fell asleep. And when I was asleep, he held me when I had a nightmare.

Now he _was_ the nightmare.

A knock on the door broke me out of my memories, and I grabbed the handle of my luggage to head out the door.

* * *

"Hee hee hooooooo... hee hee hoooooo..."

"Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth," I coached, leaning forward in the seat.

"How much longer?" Alice moaned, grabbing the underside of her now-noticeable baby belly while clenching her eyes shut.

"I'm pulling in right now," Rosalie groaned. "Jesus, if I'd have known we were going to have to stop at every gas station along the way, we'd have left earlier."

"I'm sorry!" Alice shrieked, throwing open the door. "You're a baby doctor! You should know that pregnant women have to pee all of the time! It's not my fault! Blame the fetus!"

Rosalie huffed and got out of the car. "I might as well grab a drink. I usually avoid it on road trips, but since we're going to be stopping in the other fifteen towns along the way so that Alice can mark them as hers with her urine, I'll have plenty of opportunities to use the restroom."

"Blame the fetus!" Alice's voice echoed again off the brick wall and glass front. I smirked at the way she ran through the door with her legs glued together from the knee up.

Angela stretched her arms and back, yawning. "Since you're driving, I'll buy your drink."

We'd already stopped at four gas stations, and we had only been on the road a little over an hour. Though we'd made all of these stops, I had stayed in the car until now each time because I was too tired to stand up. Since everybody else was getting out, though, I figured that I would, too.

The inside was laid out like any typical gas station. To the left was the checkout counter and to the right were two aisles of chips, gum, candy and snack cakes. Then there was the aisle that always held items like flashlights, expired cans of beanie weenies, gardening gloves and hats saying, "There is no R in Washington." Of course, along the back wall were the numerous industrial refrigerators filled with bottles and cans of soda, juice, tea, and beer and over-priced jugs of milk.

All of these calorie-laden deliciosities were displayed so enticingly, but I was in the hunt for the staples – a Snickers and a bottle of Coke. If I planned on surviving the day, I needed more caffeine.

"Whew, almost didn't make it that time," Alice sighed, placing her head on my shoulder while I stood in line behind two very large men who were buying the store out of their beef jerky and Marlboro inventory.

"Awwww, poor thing," I comforted, patting her hair. "I saw some Depends back there in the random shit aisle. Need me to grab some? I'll act like they're for me."

"Shut up," she snorted. "Just because I pee a little when I sneeze doesn't mean I need adult diapers."

One of the men in front of us heard and started to laugh, and before I knew it, I was smiling. That was until they walked toward the exit and my eyes fell on the magazines that their bodies had been hiding below the counter.

"Ooooooh shiiiiiit." Alice's voice sounded like it was in slow-motion, stretched out and muffled.

Six different gossip magazines sat neatly on two racks just three feet in front of me, and each of them focused on one topic.

_Edward and Tanya Part Deux_

_Edward Kicks Bella to the Curb for Tanya!_

_Caught Kissing!_

_Hollywood's Hottest Couple_

_Together Again_

Reaching out shakily, I grabbed the final magazine on the top right and read the headline that was in bright white letters across the front.

_Happy and In Love_

There Edward was at the after-party the photographers were talking about. The photos were dark and somewhat grainy, probably taken on a cell phone. He was standing next to her in the center of the photo on the left wearing a black suit, smiling the widest grin I'd seen on him in... well... since before everything happened. My heart clenched as I recognized the glimmer in his eye as he stared down at her in awe.

My eyes then shifted to the photo on the right. It was from a different angle, from the back this time. They must have turned around. In this shot, you could make out the graceful curve of Tanya's bare back and the placement of Edward's hand in the dip right above the swell of her behind. That was bad enough, being such an intimate and protective place to caress, but what was worse was how her arm was angled behind and her fingers were laced with his against her bare skin.

I wondered what he was whispering in her ear. I wondered what her hair smelled like considering his nose was buried in it. Were his lips warm? Was his breath?

"Are you going to buy that, miss?" the cashier asked, and I jumped, shooting my watering eyes up to him. I couldn't speak any kind of reply. If I opened my mouth, I would scream.

"No she isn't," Alice answered, ripping it out of my hand along with my candy and pop. "Just these. This should cover it." She slapped a five dollar bill down on the counter and pulled my arm toward the door without grabbing her change.

"Alice," I whimpered.

"He wouldn't! You _know_ he wouldn't do that to you!"

"What happened?" Rosalie yelled behind us. Angela was following right after her hastily trying to catch up while balancing two large fountain drinks and a bag of chips.

Alice escorted me into the back seat and slunk in next to me before the other two took up the front seats.

"Magazines spreading lies happened," she replied.

They all groaned and mouthed their hatred, but I knew what I saw. At one time, Edward looked at me like he was looking at her. His hands used to brush along my skin before settling into the dip in my back. Our fingers would knot themselves together and hold on for dear life the same as theirs were in the picture.

A sob escaped my mouth before I could stop it, and before I could do anything else, I was in Alice's arms being rocked back and forth.

"Don't believe it, Bella," she whispered.

But it was too late. I knew he'd moved on. Just as I had wished for him.

* * *

"Oh my God!" Rosalie screeched. "Look how close we are to the stage! We'll be able to smell her sweat and perfume!"

The plan when we got to Seattle was to sightsee before the concert since none of us had really done that since we were in high school, but when we got to the hotel, I was too tired from crying so they stayed with me in the room while I slept until it was time to get ready. What I wanted was to sleep more, but he would have been there in my dreams when they were away, and I couldn't stomach that... so here I was.

Lending itself to a bygone era, the venue was smaller with round, red velvet booths and accompanying tables facing toward the stage. This type of place was usually reserved for dinner theaters, but tonight it would just be used for music and cocktails. Our tickets were for a booth in the front row, set off to the side.

"I love Sia," Alice sighed, leaning back in her nude silk mini-dress with a black waistband and draping underneath to mask her growing belly, as well as the khaki-colored leather jacket on top. Angela sat on the other side of her wearing a white crepe knee-length skirt with a sheer black top and black pumps. Rosalie sat on the other side of me wearing her signature shocking color in the form of red asymmetrical Grecian-style jersey dress with a ruched skirt and gold gladiator heels.

I was surprisingly understated tonight, in comparison. Whoever was responsible for my wardrobe choice was a godsend. She knew that I would not be up for wearing a tiny cocktail dress that would only draw attention. That was the last thing I needed after the past several days.

I was dressed in a pair of high-waisted gray wool pants, a chic white-button up with an exaggerated collar and snake print heels. It was demure yet classy enough to blend in.

After only a thirty minute wait and two rounds of drinks, the lights dimmed and Sia came onto the stage in an elaborate red and white striped dress, laughing and smiling.

"Good evening, Seattle."

For several minutes she interacted with the crowd before beginning her set list, first singing "Numb," followed by "The Church of What's Happening Now," and then "Soon We'll Be Found," which was a crowd favorite, and one of mine as well. I'd loved her music for at least a year, and it was amazing to see the songs take on a whole knew aura when sung live.

The evening was going well. Better than I had expected. The blue lighting cast down on the stage from high up above, bathed those of us near the front in its serenity. Much to my own surprise, I felt calm, more at ease. I didn't feel like I could burst into tears at any second. The ache still hovered in the background, and I struggled to keep there, but in front of me was a woman that allowed me to get myself lost in her music. I could not exactly forget, but I could be at peace.

If only the peace wasn't so short-lived.

A faint tinkling of the piano keys and a soft tapping filled the room, and my breath caught in my throat.

"No," I whimpered, immediately recognizing the intro, having forgotten about this particular song on her album.

Alice's hand touched my arm, and I squeezed my eyes shut. "What's wrong?" she whispered.

"No," I whimpered again. "Not this one."

_When I look up from my pillow  
I dream you are there with me  
Though you are far away  
I know you'll always be near to me_

_I go to sleep  
And imagine that you're there with me  
I go to sleep  
And imagine that you're there with me_

_I look around me  
And feel you are ever so close to me  
Each tear that flows from my eye  
__Brings back memories of you to me_

_I go to sleep  
And imagine that you're there with me  
I go to sleep  
And imagine that you're there with me_

_I was wrong, I will cry  
I will love you till the day I die  
You alone, you alone and no one else  
You were meant for me_

_When morning comes again  
I have the loneliness you left me  
Each day drags by  
Until finally night time descends on me_

_I go to sleep  
And imagine that you're there with me  
I go to sleep  
And imagine that you're there with me_

The music continued, after her voice ended, and I was lost. Lost in her music just like before. But not in peace this time.

This song was sung for me, sung to me, sung about me... Like she _was _me. She picked me out of the audience, picked my brain, picked the song that would hurt the most. And she didn't stop. I had been targeted for the rest of the night. Every single song cut into me like a knife to my heart. I looked left, and I looked right, but there was no easy escape. I was stuck there in that seat, staring up at the woman singing to me, singing about my life.

_You dropped the bomb__  
And now you're gone__  
I held you dear__  
You swallowed my fears__  
And now I've drunk my last beer with you  
You have been loved by someone good_

.

.

.

_I believe the world, it spins for you  
We will never be, I am the moon  
I believe the world, it spins for you  
We will never be, I am the moon_

_I long to be apart  
I isolate my heart  
You've drawn me into your world  
Now I, too, spin limbless _

_._

_._

_._

_Help, I have done it again  
I have been here many times before  
Hurt myself again today  
And, the worst part is there's no one else to blame _

_._

_._

_._

"Bella?" A hand was shaking my arm, stirring me. "Honey, the concert is over. Time to wake up, sweets. Hey, are you okay? Why are your eyes closed? Bella?"

Alice's voice had gone from light and mocking to strained and concerned in a matter of seconds when I didn't respond in any way. I was frozen, hardened in place, trying to not feel it. It was creeping in my veins, threatening to tear me apart from the inside out, slowly and thoroughly. This was something I wasn't prepared for. This was the one thing I swore to myself that I would never feel. I couldn't allow it to overtake me.

"Hey, look at me, Bella. I need you to open your eyes."

Rosalie had my face cupped in her hands now. Her thumbs brushed softly along my cheeks trying to coax my eyelids into following her demand.

_Be strong, Bella...like always._

Slowly, cautiously, I forced them open. Filling my line of sight, Rosalie sat in front of me while Alice and Angela stood behind her with similar worried expressions. I'd seen my friends like this before. They stood on one side of the threshold and I stood on the other. And just like then, that strength I thought I had disappeared.

Pulled into their tight embrace the second my face contorted, I melted into their arms and let them hold me as I cried.

"You love him, Bella, and he loves you, too."

"Talk to him. It's never too late."

"I don't think we can stand to see you like this much longer."

"We miss your smile, Bella. We miss your laughter. We miss _you_."

And I missed _him_. God I missed him so much. I always had.

Night time was when I missed him the most because that was when I needed him the most. In the darkness. In the loneliness. My mind called out for him, summoning him to my side just like every other time I had ever needed him. Just like he had promised when I was wrapped in his arms, when I was his.

But I no longer was his, and this longing I felt, this dreaming of him and missing him? It felt wrong. In my bed, in Forks, I called for him every night. In his bed, in Los Angeles, he called for another.

I had to stop for my own sanity if for nothing else. I just didn't know how.

* * *

How long had it been? Six or seven months? I foraged through the past, searching for clues or events we had talked about. No, it had been longer than that. Jake and I were still together the last time I was here. Had it really been that long?

Grass squished into the soggy earth under my shoes as I walked around one headstone and then a small grave marker in memory of an infant. Up ahead, under the tree to the left of the large mausoleum, I could see her waiting for me.

Noon bells rang at the little white church down the street a few blocks. Parishioners dressed in their Sunday best were probably filing down the steps thanking the minister for his beautiful sermon as I coursed my way through the final resting places of hundreds of their loved ones, finding my way to mine.

When my feet stopped, automatically remembering the way without any instruction though it had been such a long time since the last time they had traveled that exact path, she rested in front of me simply and modestly.

_SWAN_

The large letters of her last name, of our last name, were etched out of the polished gray granite. She was on the right under her name and the two dates that signified the beginning and end of her life. Dad's name was on the left. He only had one date under his name.

A tear streamed down my cheek as I read the inscription.

_We lived together in happiness. We rest together in peace._

"Hi, mom," I whispered when I crouched down, my voice already cracking. "It's me. Please don't be mad that I've not been by to visit. I think about you every day if I'm here or not."

The wind picked up in a strong gust and blew the umbrella I was holding back, and I had to use both hands to right it until the wind died down again to a soft water-logged breeze.

"Things are different since I talked to you last. Jake and I didn't get married. It's a long story, and the details are better left unsaid, but I hope you know that I was strong and got through it. He hurt me, but I lived, momma. Just like you told me to."

Lifting my hand, I traced the letters of her name with the tip of my index finger, feeling the rough edges scrape along my skin.

"I went to Paris. You know how I always said that was my dream? After what happened, I bought a ticket and went by myself. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Oh, mom, you should have tasted the pastries, and you would have loved this little cafe I found. It was so typically Parisian, just like you see in the movies, and they had the best crème brulee..."

_"Take me back there when you show me your Paris."_

I flinched as Edward's whispered plea in Seattle caught me by surprise when it flashed through my mind. I could feel his breath on me. I could taste his mouth.

A sob tore through me, and I wiped at my face.

"I fell in love, mom. Not just with Paris. I fell in love with... with _him_. The man of my dreams."

I paused to catch my breath when I realized the truth in that statement.

"He was just _there_ one day... at the bookstore. I don't know how to explain it, but I could feel this electricity between us from the moment we met. There was nothing we could do to slow down our feelings. It was like deep down inside we knew we didn't have long..."

The wind blew stronger again, and I turned my head so that my hair could help block the rain from hitting my face. It was wet enough as it was, salty and streaked.

"You've got to help me," I whispered. "Help me let go of him. I can't continue to need him the way I do when... when he's got somebody else."

Silence, except for those noises coming from me, filled every inch of the cemetery as I huddled there in my blue coat, touching her name with my flattened palm.

"Can you hear me, momma?" I whimpered. "I can't do this on my own. I've tried. It's _killing_ me. _Please. Help me._"

Minutes I waited for a sign from the heavens. Minutes I listened. But there was no ray of light shining on me through the clouds, and the whistling wind that had been whipping me around had all but died out. There was nothing.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the tears out, realizing how stupid it was for me to expect anything. Things like that didn't happen in real life. Taking a shuddering breath, I wiped off my face and went to stand when my blurry eyes fell upon a small box buried in the wilted grass on the side of the grave. It was brownish-yellow and made of sturdy plastic, like it was built to withstand all kinds of weather. I'd never seen it before.

Blinking so that I cleared my vision, I picked it up and popped the metal clasps, pulling open the lid. Inside I saw several half-sheets of paper folded and placed one on top of the other. Taking each of them out, holding the umbrella between my upper arm and my ribs, I set the box back down and maneuvered so that I was seated on the bottom slab of the headstone, my back leaning on the edge of the marker.

The top one looked the newest compared to the slightly yellowed edges of the pieces toward the bottom, so I opened it first. I don't think I could have ever prepared myself for what I found written inside.

_My Dearest Renee,_

_He's gone. The boy that made her smile the way that I made you smile is gone. All of the life in her eyes has gone with him. Don't ever stop watching over her. You're the only one that can be there for her at all times. Keep her with me. I'm so scared._

_I love you and miss you every day._

_Your Charles_

"What?" I breathed. Focusing in on the words again, I reread them slower this time, taking it all in. What was this? I quickly unfolded the next one, my hands shaking the entire time.

_My Dearest Renee,_

_I almost lost her. I almost lost my final connection to you. Was that her time? Were they coming for her? I couldn't let it happen._

_Please help me forgive myself for killing someone, but I couldn't lose her. I've lost enough in my lifetime._

_I love you and miss you every day._

_Your Charles_

"Oh my God," I cried. I opened the next one unable to stop my hands from shivering.

_My Dearest Renee,_

_She's hiding something from me. I can hear it in her voice. Her boyfriend took her to Seattle this week, and she says it's only because of the media, but nothing feels right about this. Please watch over our daughter and keep her safe until I can figure it out. I promise you I won't let anything happen to her._

_I love you and miss you every day._

_Your Charles_

...And the next one.

_My Dearest Renee,_

_Were you there with her in that room while she waited for us to find her? I shouldn't even have to ask. I know you were._

_I met him yesterday. The boy. The actor that she loves. My mouth ran away with itself when I first talked to him in the hospital. I accused him of trying to take her away from me. But he said that he never would. Forks was where he belonged. Bella was where he belonged. He's a good man, and he loves her. She's always deserved to be loved that way. She's always deserved to be loved the way that I loved you. The way I still do._

_I love you and miss you every day._

_Your Charles_

...And the last.

_My Dearest Renee,_

_There's a boy. One of the guys at the station saw them kissing at the bar. She's meeting me at the bonfire tonight. As any father should, I'm going to embarrass her about it, but I'm secretly relieved. Maybe Jake didn't break her after all._

_Please help her make smart decisions. Please help her to love openly and freely. Please help her realize that love is worth fighting for and sacrificing everything for. Because when that beauty is gone, nothing fills the hole that is left in its place. Once you've had love, the days are lonely without it... and the nights are worse._

_I love you and miss you every day, my beautiful, beautiful Renee. You're in my heart and in my dreams for always._

_Your Charles_

I had forgotten how to breathe.

In my hands I held my father's bared soul in the form of five heartbreakingly real, handwritten letters. This was a side of him I had never seen in my twenty-six years. I didn't know if I was crying over the content of these letters or the fact that I had actually gotten to see_ him_.

"Didn't you always wonder where you got your writing talent from?" a man whispered quietly behind me. I jumped up in surprise and spun around clutching my chest.

"Daddy?" I mouthed looking between him and the letters, unable to speak due to the lump in my throat.

He looked down at them in my hands and shrugged. "I feel more connected to her when I give her something tangible. It's like she's still here."

We stood there for several seconds or minutes, I don't know which, just staring at each other through the growing pools in our eyes. Before me was a man that I never knew. He was always my father and at one time he was my mother's husband, but this man was wide-open, vulnerable and frightened.

"They are all about me," I whispered. "The letters... All of them."

He walked forward, ducking under the umbrella, and pulled out another piece of folded, damp paper from his pocket. It matched the ones I held.

"Of course they are, honey," he replied. "Renee knows that I'm fine. It's you that I worry about, and it's you that your mother would worry about."

"Is that...?" I croaked, angling my quivering chin toward the paper he was crinkling in his fingers.

"Another letter?" he finished for me. "Yeah. Would you like to read it?"

I nodded minutely and took it from him, almost feeling like I was intruding on something too personal to read. But it seemed that he wanted me to for some reason.

_My Dearest Renee,_

_I've been talking to a professional about my guilt in killing the man that almost killed our little girl. I have been for a while. She's the mother of the boy that loves our daughter. The shooting is not the only thing we talk about._

_I'm worried about Bella and how she won't talk to anyone, and this woman says that she's worried about her, too, and feels that she is to blame. She thinks that she pushed Bella too far too fast causing both her pain and her son's, and she is fearful of causing them more. He called her the other day, though. The boy. They didn't talk about Bella, but he did call. He is making progress. I hope that is a sign that Bella will talk to me soon. I can't take much more silence. There have been too many years of it._

_Please continue to watch over her and be there for her when she needs help. Until the day she opens up to me, I wait and find peace in knowing that you are doing what I cannot. I know you are because she's still with me._

_I love you and miss you every day._

_Your Charles_

My brain repeated portions of his letter trying to understand.

_...the boy that loves our daughter._

_...silence. There have been too many years of it._

_...she's still with me._

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking up.

"The hurt has never left your eyes," he said quietly, taking the letter from me. "You try to hide it, but I know you too well."

"I _have_ hurt, dad, but... but you've hurt more. I couldn't stand to see you like that. That's the reason for all of this."

"For all of _what_?" I could sense the yearning in his strained voice for me to reveal everything. His eyes were begging me from their deepest depths to finally talk to him. And for the first time ever, I wanted to. There was no more hiding. The walls had been broken down. These letters and these tears in his eyes were his way of showing that the facade was gone. All that was left was for me to do the same.

So I did.

"Where would you like me to start?" I asked.

Releasing a deep breath from his lungs, his head fell forward in relief. "From the beginning, please," he whispered.

We both sat on the base of mom's grave under my umbrella and leaned back while I told him everything from what mom said to me before she died to how Jake and I made the pact to help both him and Billy cope to how Jake would climb in my window every night.

Revealing my closely-guarded secrets was easier than I thought it would be, but maybe that was because of who I was telling. My father had always been so caring. I knew he loved me, but what he held in his heart was an immeasurable amount of love.

When I started to cry as I was telling him something particularly difficult, he would hold me until I stopped and could continue. When I sniffled, he wiped the stray tears away with his thumb. He did not judge or reprimand. He just listened and let me get it all out because he knew that what I was doing was something I never planned on.

"One of the worst days came two years after mom died," I murmured. "I... I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't walked in on you. You could have left me all alone."

"What are you talking about?" he questioned, taking my hand.

"The kitchen. Remember? I walked in on you holding the gun in your hand. That could have been it, dad. If I had been a minute later..." I trailed off, unable to finish the thought. It still made me sick to think about.

His eyes were wide beside me. "If you had been a minute later, nothing. What do you think I was doing, Bells?"

"Daddy," I whispered, pleading with him not to make me say it with the tone of my voice.

"I was checking the gun," he said forcefully. "I was checking it because of you."

My eyes scrunched together. "Me? But you-"

"I had guns all over that house," he interrupted. "Do you know that I came home every day scared to death of what I would find? I was always so afraid that you were going to hurt yourself and leave me behind. I did everything in my power to keep you from taking your own life for years."

"No, dad!" I gasped, but he continued. By the expression on his face, he looked horrified, and by the way the words rushed out, it was obvious that he was.

"When you walked in, I was checking the safety to see if it had been tampered with at all before I moved it to my bedroom to be locked in the gun safe. You were so nervous when you saw me with it. All these years I thought you had tried to kill yourself because you wanted me to get away from the gun so quickly like you _had_ tried to tamper with it. Are you telling me that's not true and that you thought I was going to kill myself?"

"What else was I supposed to think?" I choked, shaking my head in disbelief while the tears poured down my face. "Your finger was on the trigger. I thought you were giving up. My entire life flashed before my eyes in the seconds that it took to distract you, and I've done the same ever since then. Every mention you made of mom was so forced. You could barely say her name or talk about her. You've gotten better, but there is always some sort of reaction."

"Bella..." He sighed as he took my face in his hands. "I'm cautious when I talk about your mother because of _you_. Can't you see that now? Everything I've ever done was to protect you. I knew that inside you were torn apart with grief, and I had no idea how to help you find your way back to who you were before. You were so carefree as a child, and then you disappeared all because of an event that will never make sense to either of us."

I leaned into his hand, my face twisting with fresh cuts to my heart. He was right. It never would. Mom was one of those people that was good for the world. She never did anything but bring joy wherever she was. She never spoke an ill word and cared about her family and friends because they were her entire life. The reason she was taken from us would forever be a mystery. We were all better when she was around.

"Everything was so perfect," I cried. "I had everything I ever wanted, and then it was ripped from my hands. It was like someone was telling me that I had too much of a good thing, like I didn't deserve happiness. What did I do wrong?"

"My God, Bella," he choked. His fingers curled around the back of my neck and pulled me to his chest where I continued to sob uncontrollably. "You did nothing wrong, honey. Do you realize how proud I am to say I'm your father? Every day I am amazed with who you've become. Your heart is bigger than you are. You make those around you feel so loved that it's almost crippling. Where did that come from? Where did you learn to love like that?"

Sniffling, I whispered, "You and mom taught me... I am always so afraid I'm going to lose one of you at any moment, and I don't want you leaving without knowing how much I loved you."

His fingers combed through my hair and trailed down my back as he held onto me, not letting go. The warmth was comforting in the chill of the outdoors. It had been too long since I'd felt anything like it. I had gotten used to the cold.

"So why did you tell Edward you didn't love him, honey?" he asked, catching me off guard.

Blinking, I lifted my head and stared at him. "You know?"

"Alice told me. She's kept me from going insane over the past month."

I sighed. "I'm sorry. I just... knew you wouldn't understand why."

"You're right. I don't. Do you remember saying that I've gotten better about mentioning your mom?" I nodded but was confused. "Well, now you know the truth behind why I was so careful. Don't you see that it was easier because I saw a change in you? For the first time since the accident, you were truly happy again, and that includes when you were with Jake. I said that I never knew how to help you find yourself again, but along came this boy, and he knew exactly what to do. Your beautiful smile, the same smile that matched your mom's, was back. The light in your eyes was so bright. Edward was the reason for all of it. How could you push him away and deny yourself of something so wonderful?"

"It's what was best for him, daddy. He couldn't give up everything for me."

Pulling me back to him into tight embrace, he took a deep breath that released in a fog. Above us the soft rain pattered on the nylon of the umbrella in a musical pattern, lulling me toward sleep. I wanted to stay in that spot with him and let him hold me like he did when I was a child, but I knew that I could not. The years had passed no matter how hard they were, and now I was an adult that had to handle situations on my own and make my own decisions.

"My wish has always just been for you to be happy, Bella. And you were. Both of you were."

Sighing, I dug myself further into his side knowing that we'd be leaving soon, going our separate directions. "I know we were," I murmured. "I'll always love him, but he's found happiness again, dad, and I can't take that away from him no matter how much it hurts."

* * *

Laying in bed, I stared up at the ceiling while soft, soothing music played in the background trying to calm my nerves and racing mind. This was my test. If I could do this one thing, if I could keep him away, I knew I could move on.

_Wretched, look at me, I've lost it, melting on the table  
In parking lots and markets  
I can't help it, I loved you like a starfish loves the salty water  
Like a selfish daughter  
_

"Mom, I don't know if you heard me today, but this is the type of situation when I could use your help."

_Yet I wrote the words to the swan song  
The author of the wrong  
And I said what I said and I meant it  
But now I regret it_

"Help me not need him, mom. I love him, but I can't continue to do this to myself."

_Foolish, how was I so careless_  
_Pawning off my treasure, the envy of an heiress  
Now my dollars are crumbled in my pocket  
How can I reclaim it?  
What if someone's got it?  
_

"And I can't continue to do it to him."

_When I wrote the words to the swan song  
The author of the wrong  
And I said what I said and I meant it  
But now I regret it_

"It's wrong of me to need him like this when he's got someone else."

_How could the world have turned so ugly  
I am dying  
Could you touch me again?  
Touch me again  
_

"Please."

_When I wrote the words to the swan song  
The author of the wrong  
And I said what I said and I meant it  
But now I regret it_

Taking a shuddering breath, I rolled to my side and shut my eyes.

**

* * *

AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

**The outfits for the concert can be found in my profile.  
**

Anybody need a hug?

MANY of you have been asking when B&E are getting back together and when the angst is going to be over. I cannot answer that question for you because, well, I believe that would ruin what I have planned. Let's leave it a mystery and let you be surprised, okay?

Now for something I don't want to keep a mystery,** I'm planning a new story! **I've put up a link to the preview in my profile. It's called "I Love You More" and it's going to be a little different for me and from this story. I'm stepping outside the box, but it's going to be incredibly fun. Go check it out and leave a comment on the teaser to tell me what you think!

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	30. Chapter 30 Left Behind

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language**, violence, lemons

* * *

Okay, this bitch is long. Hold on tight. See ya at the bottom...

* * *

I have several new songs this chapter:** http:/www[dot]playlist[dot]com/playlist/18746192139**

And here's the most important song of the chapter: **http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=02J7WGdcwxY**

**

* * *

Chapter 30**

**Left Behind**

"So what are you trying to say?" I asked, aggressively throwing another pair of dress socks in my luggage next to the other ten. My attorney, J. Jenks, and I had been on the phone for only a couple of minutes discussing new developments in the case against Jake, but he'd been able to piss me off in half that time. "Is he getting away with it?"

"Not at all, Mr. Cullen. Jacob Black has been charged with every crime he committed, and he will serve time for each one of them. The difference is how long he will serve. What they are offering him is what is called a sentence plea. Plea bargains are very common in judicial practices anymore. More than ninety percent of cases take this route. I'm not surprised this is the direction this case has gone considering the damning evidence against the defendant."

"Well, what sentence are we talking about?" I asked, sitting down on the end of the bed to try to calm myself down.

"What the district attorney has offered is twenty-five years without parole."

"TWENTY-FIVE YEARS?" I shouted. "How is that possible? He murdered someone and conspired to kill... to kill... _her!_ He also evaded capture, extorted money and assaulted Seth and I! That's just the tip of the iceberg! Shouldn't that be grounds for the death penalty?"

Jenks laughed, and that only managed to throw fuel on the fire of my own anger.

"I do not find this funny," I growled.

"Neither do I, Mr. Cullen, but you are being unreasonable. While capital punishment is indeed an option in the state of Washington, the defendant did not commit first degree murder. According to Ms. Swan's statement and Mr. Black's, as well as the surveillance footage and the evidence collected, there was no premeditation."

"But _still_..." I whined. I swear to God I was going to be bald one of these days. Right now I was pulling so hard on my hair, I knew that there would be pieces left between my fingers.

"Mr. Cullen, please try to calm down. With my many years of experience in the legal system, I can tell you that the defendant would have _only _been looking at a maximum of sixty-five years in prison had he pleaded not guilty and was later convicted by a jury after a lengthy trial in which all parties would have to give testimony and present evidence."

"Exactly!" I interjected, throwing my hand up in disgust. "He's in his mid-twenties. Add sixty-five years to that, including the brutality of living in a prison, and it's a very big possibility that he could have left in a body bag! Do you realize that he will be a free man when he's fifty now?"

"Of course I realize that, but you need to understand that I'm just the messenger. I have no say in the outcome."

Sighing, I leaned back and rested flat on my back on top of the clothes I had folded to go in my luggage. "I know it's not your fault, Jenks, and I don't mean to take any of my anger out on you. It's just..."

"What?" he questioned when I didn't finish my thought.

Rubbing my palm up and down my face, I tried to smooth out the tension and stress. I had gotten his call late last week telling me that the case against Jake was moving forward, and very quickly at that, and that I should prepare myself for a less-than-desirable outcome as one of the victims. I didn't know what that meant. He hadn't elaborated and couldn't because of how little he knew at the time.

So for the past several days, I had entertained ideas of Jake going free to him being placed in a mental institution instead of a prison. A sentence plea was better than either of those, but it still wasn't enough.

Weren't criminals supposed to be brought to justice? It sure didn't feel like he was getting an equal punishment for the crimes committed. Weren't victims supposed to feel closure or some semblance of security? Because I sure didn't. Twenty-five years behind bars could never be enough to suppress the nagging thoughts in the back of my mind and the nagging ache in the pit of my stomach.

"I'm scared, Jenks."

"Why?" he asked incredulously. "Lengthy imprisonment can be very eye-opening for many criminals. He also has no chance for parole. When he goes in, he's not getting out until his set release date. Who knows where you'll be that far down the road or who the man that walks out of there will be. You shouldn't worry about your safety."

"It's not mine I'm worrying about," I murmured, immediately biting my tongue to stop myself from saying any more.

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear what you said."

"Nothing," I replied. "What about James and Marcus? The money? The photos? It has to be somewhere."

"Yes, both of their homes and vehicles have been searched and the photos, as well as the digital copies, have all been confiscated into evidence from their computers and emails. You have no need to worry about their release. As for the money..."

I could hear paper rustling, so I knew he was trying to find a document.

"As for the money, we have the wire transfer records showing that a total of eight million dollars was transferred into three different accounts owned by the three men responsible for the crimes. Fortunately for you, the majority of the extortion money was placed into high-yield savings accounts, so you will recover that money, but approximately $1.1 million was spent. As your attorney, I _should_ suggest that you file a lawsuit against Mr. Black to recover the amount that was lost, but I feel that I should be honest with you. I do not believe you will ever see that money again. Mr. Black is not well-off and neither is his family. The legal fees alone would probably be more than you would ever see returned. But it is up to you."

Scrubbing my face with my hand again, I shook my head. "I do not wish to file a lawsuit. His father has been through enough. I couldn't put any more undue stress on him for something that I could drop in a day without a second thought."

"As you wish, Mr. Cullen. That's all I had to report. As we hear more, either I or my associate Jason Scott will call you. The case goes before the judge for approval next week. I'm not sure on the day, so we'll keep you posted."

"I'll be in New York for the next few days for a movie premiere and promotions, so call my cell. If I'm busy, I'll call you back as soon as I can. Thanks for the information."

"No problem, Mr. Cullen. Have a safe flight."

Throwing the phone on the bed, I stood up and mechanically refolded the clothes that had gotten wrinkled under my body. My flight to New York left in a few hours, and my new driver would be showing up to take me to the airport soon.

His name was Alec, and from all the background checks I had done on him, he seemed like a normal, thirty year old man with a wife and child. And they checked out to be normal, too. At least the woman did. Their daughter was only fourteen months old and barely had any time to commit crimes of a heinous nature.

I honestly hated how my trust in people had been rocked.

After tossing in the rest of my clothes and toiletries, I ran downstairs and grabbed four stacks of mail from my office.

"Finally some time to tackle you." I tapped my finger on top of one of the envelopes. In my arms I held probably four to five hundred letters from girls, moms and some men telling me what an inspiration I was to them or how they wanted to fuck me. It was usually a fifty-fifty split on the content. No matter what they said, though, I always read each of them personally and replied to those that warranted one. More often than not they were cringe-worthy, but I would read as far as I could before moving on to the next.

I'd been sitting on these for a while. The longer I had put them off until a time when I had nothing to occupy my thoughts, the taller the stacks grew, and now I was practically swimming in them. Having the next several hours on the plane and the next few days in New York would be helpful. The last thing I wanted to do while in a city overrun by people was go out, so when I wasn't busy working, I would be holed up in my hotel room with nothing to do. It was the perfect time to start the ewww-and-awww-fest.

Grabbing a duffel bag from my closet, I threw them in there as well as a change of clothes just in case my luggage got lost, and zipped it up, finally ready.

* * *

"It's a pleasure to be of service to you again, Mr. Cullen," Alec said back to me while never taking his eyes off the interstate. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask."

"Please call me Edward, and all I ask is that you get me to the airport safely. I'm pretty laid back."

"Well, if I don't get you there safely, I don't get me there safely, and I can't risk that with my girls waiting for me at home. I love them too much to do anything reckless."

"And that there is a better reason than any that I can trust you."

The ride to the terminal was fairly lazy being that it was the tourist off-season and a Wednesday morning. When I got there, though, the lazy turned into crazy as soon as Alec pulled up to the curb to help me unload my bags.

"Should I expect this every time?" he asked, pulling the large one out as I bent over behind the trunk lid to guard more of myself from the prying cameras and video cameras.

"Shit," I hissed under my breath. The crowd of paparazzi was very large and very loud, though I was doing a good job at blocking it out. "Somebody must have tipped them off. This is way more than what there usually is out here."

"I have a pretty mean right hook," he stated, handing my large piece of luggage to the curbside check-in attendant. "I could teach them a lesson or two."

"Don't even think about it," I snorted, pulling my duffel onto my shoulder. "Hell, I'd be bailing you out of jail. I'm pretty sure your wife would be pissed."

"Nah! She's who taught me!" he laughed.

"Well, I don't really have anything else to say to that. My plane will land back here on Friday around noon. I'll call to confirm my schedule and the terminal. Will you be back?"

"Of course, Edward. This is the most exciting job I've ever had. Wish it could last longer, though."

"Don't worry," I said, slapping my palm down on his shoulder. "If you still enjoy it when I no longer need a driver, I'll refer you to some of my friends."

"Thank you," he nodded before motioning with his chin behind me. "You better get going. Looks like we have another sedan pulling up here behind us."

Taking a step up onto the curb, I stopped when I heard my name being called. _Ugh. Perfect._

"Edward, wait! Walk with me!"

_Put on a happy face. It will be okay. It's just three days... and too many hours on a plane... and too many hours together. But you have to be nice. Her ex-boyfriend is dead._

"Not a problem, Tanya." Oh man. I was laying the bullshit on thick.

She strode up to me in her black stilettos that matched her black talons and held out a small piece of luggage that probably cost more than a car. "Be a peach and carry this for me. It'll block my new outfit, and I'm getting endorsements for wearing it."

_Smile!_

"Anything else?" I asked, my teeth gleaming in the electric California sun.

"No, that won't be necessary, sweetheart. I get endorsements for using this rolling luggage, too, so I must carry that myself."

"Of course."

Things were being yelled at us as we entered through the sliding doors of the terminal, but for some reason, all I heard was a dull roar in my ears. I couldn't make out anything they were saying. Maybe I had attained some new supernatural power or something where I could tune out the voices swirling in my head. How very convenient it waited until now to surface.

Looking to the right, I inwardly rolled my eyes. Tanya was being such a priss next to me as we weaved our way through the photographers toward our gate. Who the hell wore a dress that short and that tight with shoes that high on an airplane? We would be in the air for five and a half hours between LAX and JFK. Wear fucking jeans and a t-shirt. Be comfortable for a change.

Just as I looked up from looking at her ridiculous outfit, a sweep of cool air caught me off guard, and it was then I noticed how close the crowd was, photographers and spectators alike.

"They sure are being demanding today," she giggled. "Let's give them what they want."

"Huh?"

Before I knew what was happening, Tanya had stopped walking and was molding herself into my side, smiling and posing for the cameras.

"Is this good, boys? Would you like the see the back?"

Stunned, I didn't move when she turned around and placed her hand on my chest and peeked over her shoulder. This grotesque display succeeded in snapping me out of whatever haze I had been in, and without warning, the shouts became very clear, and I took a step back at their loud volume.

"_How long have you been seeing each other?"_

"_Has this been going on the entire time since you filmed your movie?"_

"_Is it true that you've popped the question?"_

"_Can you two kiss for the cameras?"_

I stood stock-still, horrified by the line of questions being thrown at us. Where was this coming from?

"That would make your day, wouldn't it?" Tanya laughed at them, and my eyes snapped to her in rage.

"Don't respond to them!" The demand was meant to be more quiet than anything, meant only for her to hear, but it came out as a loud bark and set the photographers into more of a frenzy having seen me now abandon my usually indifferent behavior toward them.

Grabbing Tanya's arm, I started to drag us both toward our gate, hastily trying to get through security and into the the airline's VIP Lounge so that we wouldn't be bothered. I was more than half-tempted to leave her ass where it was, alone and defenseless in a melee of ravenous men and women, but I knew by the behavior she was exhibiting at that very moment, that would cause even more problems.

"Bye!" she squealed, running her nails down the inside of my arms until she had knotted her fingers with mine. I nearly gagged at the clamminess of her palm squishing against mine and how it reminded me of the premiere a couple weeks ago when she took my hand and pulled it around to her back. Though enticing at one time, the feel of her skin was now repellent. It was cold and too tight and almost fake. It wasn't warm and comforting and real. There was no spark when we touched or familiarity. It was just... Tanya.

"_Do you have any remorse after seeing the photos of her upset?"_

Up ahead, over the heads of the photographers that ran in front and were surrounding us on all sides, I could see the sign hanging from the ceiling showing that security was not far. Maybe one hundred feet. Possibly a little less. I couldn't tell for sure, and I wasn't getting there any faster.

They had managed to slow us down, encircling us in a ring of deafening noise. It was becoming unbearable. Claustrophobia was setting in with every inch they tightened their confinement. I wanted to scream or cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut in the hopes that they would be gone when I reopened them.

"_Do you have a comment on her reaction to the news?"_

"I bet I can get my endorsement contracts doubled with the amount of attention I'm getting!" Tanya giggled, and I swallowed down the bile that rose up in my throat. _Twenty feet._

"_Was this a way to hurt her?"_

Their hot breaths puffed out the into air and hit my neck and my face as I kept my eyes glued to the sign in silent prayer for the distance to magically grow shorter._ Five feet. Four feet. Three feet._

"_Did she ever tell you about her past and how she saw her mother die?"_

"Here we are," Tanya smiled, squeezing my limp hand before letting go to put her carry-on up on the belt. "I never thought we'd make it through. I wonder what on earth got into them today?"

I stood alone at the end of the belt, my duffel resting on my shoulder as I listened to the shouting behind me. The photographers were now blocked by a wall of security personnel that had finally come to our aide, but it didn't stop their voices from carrying.

Though I was motionless physically, my mind was racing a mile a minute. Were they talking about who I thought they were? They had to be. There was no other explanation. How did they know about Renee? There were photos of her upset? Did I do _what_ to hurt her?

Once we checked into the lounge, I left my bags with Tanya and darted back out into the concourse in search of the nearest Hudson News. I couldn't stop my feet. They were attached to my heart, and my heart was searching for the answers.

Looking to the left, I saw a duty free shop and a restaurant besides the end of the terminal. To the right, I saw several signs sticking out, but I couldn't read what they said that far down the hallway. There had to be one somewhere around.

I quickly looked in the windows as I ran by, straining my eyes to see a wall of magazines. Instead, I saw menu panels and bins of chocolates and candy. On the other side I saw souvenir shot glasses and t-shirts hanging from floor to ceiling. And then I saw it. The very last shop in the terminal. Running in, I fought through the people standing in line to check out and made my way to the back. While my eyes jumped from the top section to the bottom as I ran along the wall, I tried to block out the noise of the customers and The Cure song playing over the speakers.

Using my fingers, I thumbed through them, moving some to the side, checking behind the ones in the front. _Newsweek. Sports Illustrated. Good Housekeeping. Seventeen. _And then my fingers stopped on the next. Shakily pulling it from the ledge, I stared at the cover, my heart stuttering.

There she was.

Next to the stacked headline of "Left Behind," crouched down under an umbrella, her hand was pressed up against a headstone that clearly read SWAN. And she was crying. Noisily rifling through the magazine, I found the article and scanned over the ten pages, catching pieces here and there that caused me to lean back into the shelves for support.

_HER PAST_

_Bella, 26, daughter of the chief of police in Forks, Wash., was involved in a car accident when she was 17, which resulted in the death of two occupants, including her mother, Renee, and the serious injury of herself and a family friend._

Somehow – my God I don't know how – they had found a photo of the car after the accident and printed it underneath. Still attached to the tree it had wrapped itself around, the car was mangled to the point of being unrecognizable. Metal was crumpled in and warped and glass was broken out. What once was the shape of a car was a ball of twisted frame. People didn't walk away from things like that. They didn't survive.

Trying to erase the image from my line of sight, I turned the page, and my eyes immediately fell upon one name I did not expect to see.

_Jessica Stanley, a close friend, told Us that Bella struggled for years with seeing her mother's death and attempted to take her own life several times in the years following the accident. If not for Bella's former fiance, Jacob Black, the man that has been arrested for murder in the Cullen-Paul-Swan Love Triangle Scandal, she may have succeeded._

"Oh my God," I breathed, covering my mouth with my shaking hand. One of the things I was always so afraid of was her past coming out in one form or another, whether the truth or a lie, and the one person that never crossed my mind as a threat was the one person that took advantage of her.

Jake, the man that she had put so much trust in so blindly, had told Jessica everything, and Jessica had taken those painful truths and twisted them into a horrific lie. A picture of her was now painted showing someone that was powerless against her own demons when I knew she was anything but that. I had witnessed her strength time and time again.

My heart was breaking for her and what people could do to her, and I couldn't stop it no matter how hard I tried.

_HER PRESENT_

_Bella is now at the center of a grueling trial, of both the court system and of the mind. Black is charged with the murder of the personal driver to actor Edward Cullen. Edward, an Oscar-nominated actor, was the boyfriend of Bella at the time of the murder but has since confirmed the ending of their relationship._

_Sources say that the crime was one of passion and deceit, in which Bella found out about Edward's infidelities with actress Tanya Paul causing the confrontation in her bookstore and the subsequent deaths of both Edward's employee and a male paparazzo._

A full page of photos from that night accompanied this section, and I cringed away from the memories. Most of them I'd seen, while some I had not, including one that was a close-up of her face. I couldn't recall ever seeing that amount of fear in her eyes before.

_HER FUTURE_

_Now alone, with no fiance and no boyfriend, Bella has turned to her father and friends for support through this difficult time. While visiting her mother's grave, her father, Charlie Swan, arrived shortly after and the two shared several embraces and what looked like endless tears as they talked for almost an hour._

Five photos ran up the side of the page. They were grainy, taken on a rainy day with a zoom lens, but I could see her face and I could see his. There was a sadness there but also a relief.

This entire article was one exploitation after the other. None of it was entirely true. But did I not need words to explain what was going on in the photos, knowing the history between those two? I didn't. I just knew.

_It is unclear what their conversation was about, but we can assume that the disintegration and failures of her past relationships and the humiliation of being passed over for a beautiful actress were probably discussed._

_As previously reported by Us, Bella, an award-winning children's book author, publicly voiced her displeasure in Edward's relationship with Tanya last week while leaving her bookstore._

"WHAT?" I shouted. The turn of everybody's heads in the store was audible as they directed their attention to my outburst. Not caring the least bit, I turned the page, ripping the paper in the process, looking for more information on what she said. All I found were two more photos showing Tanya and I at the premiere two weeks ago, though. A small noise of agony escaped me when I saw how they had caught the exact moment that she had pulled my hand around her and when I was looking down at her trying my hardest to be nice as I pulled my hand away.

Tanya showed no signs of being upset over James, but I couldn't be sure. She was just as good an actor as I was. I thought I was doing the right thing by being nice and taking the preemptive step at making amends, but now I hated myself for even trying because all it caused was _this_. This web of lies. This uncertainty. This disaster.

Digging through the shelves, I found another magazine and flipped through it until I found the article, trying to find out what she had done when they questioned her. If what they said was true, and she had said something publicly, there were bound to be photos.

_A visibly upset Bella sits in her SUV, only days after Edward had officially announced their split, and only seconds after being asked if she had a comment on his and Tanya's relationship. Bella, taken by surprise by our questions, reacted as any heartbroken woman would. She simply muttered Tanya's name in the form of a question and then was whisked off by a male acquaintance wearing a wedding ring. The male is said to be her bodyguard._

This caption was under a grouping of photos that were taken from the side and front of her car. Jasper was pressed up against her driver's side door trying to protect her in several of the shots. The others were taken when he could do nothing to stop them.

I tried to prevent it, but the crack in my chest broke open as I looked down at her hollow stare filled with tears. After everything that had been said and done, after all of this time of anger and silence, why did this hurt so much to see?

It took no time at all to answer my own question.

Without any hesitation, I scooped every magazine I could find with her or me on the cover into my arms and walked them over to the cash register, cutting in front of the line.

"I want them all," I said brusquely.

The man behind the counter stood there blinking down at the heaps of paper sliding along each other. "This is madness. I don't understand, sir."

"Just tell me how much they are. I want these off the shelves."

Five minutes later and one trashcan fifty magazines heavier, I stood in front of a block of bright blue screens. My body was being pulled in so many different directions, and I didn't know what the right thing was to do.

My heart, my bleeding heart, was pulled north, to her. My brain, my tired brain, was pulled east, to another distraction. My body was pulled down and around and in on itself, in search of what felt comfortable and whole, never finding it.

Searching, searching the list for the city I cried for deep inside, my eyes grew strained, afraid that if I blinked, I'd miss it. But as I came to the last screen and the last name and the last departure time, they closed.

"_Now boarding American Airlines Flight 40, non-stop to JFK. We'll be taking first class passengers at this time."_

_

* * *

Knock. Knock. Knock._

"Just a minute!" I yelled, never taking my eyes off of the piece of paper I held in my hands.

_Dear Edward,_

_Though my love for you may be irrational considering I've never met you, I don't feel ashamed of it and I know for a fact that I'll never regret it. Because of you and the way that you captivated me, I have met some of the most amazing people on this planet who share the same passion for your work as I do. At one time, they were strangers. They went about their lives in different states and different countries. But now? Now they are my friends – my very best friends that I love dearly. And I have you to thank for giving me an outlet to find them. My life is forever changed. Thank you for unknowingly making me happy._

_Love,  
Emily_

_P.S. I promise if I ever happen to accidentally bump into you in a bar or on the street, I will not scream in your face, pass out or cry._

There are those fan letters that freak you out, and then there are those fan letters that can turn any bad day around. This one was the latter. My grin, a grin that had been a stranger for a while, was uncontrollable. At least some good came out of the past ten years.

_Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock._

"I'm coming! I'm coming! Hold on!" Scrambling from the couch while simultaneously putting the letter in the "Respond" pile, I jogged to the door of my suite at the Mandarin Oriental in my dress socks.

"And, here I was beginning to think that you already didn't need my services," Jane smirked. Stepping to the side I let her enter through the door so that she wouldn't snag the hem of her maroon one-shouldered gown. "The car is downstairs."

"Okay, give me a minute," I replied. As I sat down in a chair to put on my shiny black shoes that matched my black suit, Jane walked over and picked up the piece of fan mail I had just read from the top of the stack.

"You're going to kill them," she whispered.

"Don't think that I don't already know that, Jane," I whispered back just as quietly like there were ears to hear my big secret. The truth of the matter was, I sincerely felt sorry for the fans. They'd supported me in every endeavor I made, and while I knew they'd all find another actor to devote themselves to eventually, they were not going to handle my news so well at first. "That's why the 'Respond' pile is so much bigger than the 'You Scare Me' pile."

"Looks like you've read quite a few of them."

I shrugged. "Probably close to a hundred. That's not too bad considering how I only had last night and a few hours today between promotions. I plan on hitting them again as soon as I can. I'm not staying long tonight. Especially since those pictures of Tanya and I came out."

"Okay. Just don't forget you're supposed to introduce the band. Stay at least for a few songs. The studio thinks it will be good since they have songs on the soundtrack."

"Will do," I said, standing and grabbing my jacket. "Ready?"

"Sure am."

Taking her arm, I leaned in just as we walked out of the door into the hallway. "You look very pretty, Jane."

She smiled. "You were always my favorite."

* * *

"_Edward, look this way!"_

"_Tanya, smile for us over here!"_

"_Turn around! Let us see the back!"_

Fifteen feet in front of me stood hundreds of photographers blinding me with their camera flashes. To the left was Tanya with her arm draped around my back. Jane stood vigilant several feet behind me, ever the protector. She was my rock at events like these. When things got too out of control or too personal, she was always there to move things along when I couldn't do it myself.

She'd already been to my rescue three times tonight when the questions veered off into queries about my relationships and not the movie. I was already at my wits' end, and the evening was far from over.

"You look really sexy tonight, Edward," Tanya purred without breaking her smile. Now, my smile? It was completely fake. I didn't enjoy any of this. Hers on the other hand? I wouldn't bet it wasn't real. Because this was what she lived for – people giving her attention and promoting her face.

"You look... nice," I whispered. It wasn't a lie. She did. Some designer had created a flattering lavender gown just for her and this event.

"I look better than nice, and you know it."

"What do you want me to say? You look nice, Tanya. The dress is very pretty."

"It's not what I want you to _say_. It's more what I want you to _do_."

Through my jacket I felt her hand start to inch lower, and my body tensed. In warning, I growled her name, and she stopped her descent.

"Not here then," she whispered, squeezing my arm before floating over to the line of journalists.

_Not here, what?_

"What the fuck was that?" Jane hissed behind me. Her widened eyes were glued on the back of Tanya's head. "Are you and her actually...?"

"No! She's a predator. Ever since the LA premiere, she's been all over me. I tried to do the right thing by being nice because of James, but she's obviously taken that as some sort of affection."

"Well, given your history..."

"Given our history, nothing. A smile and a hug does not equal 'I want to fuck you again.'"

Crossing her arms, Jane leaned back on her heels and eyed my biggest regret. "I think it would be in your best interest to avoid her tonight. I can almost bet you someone caught that violating hand of hers on film. Distance is the key to downplaying rumors."

"Right. They'll only see it as us trying to hide something." Ringing my hands in my hair another time, I groaned. "This sucks. This really fucking sucks."

Not feeling the need to grace the crowd with my presence any longer, I stalked off toward the entrance of the theater, leaving another red carpet behind.

* * *

"I want to thank you all for attending the premiere of _In Too Deep_," I shouted into the mic. "I hope you enjoyed the film. But now I want to introduce tonight's entertainment. You'll find two of their songs on the soundtrack which is in stores now. Give it up for Kings of Leon!"

The audience of at least a thousand people spread throughout the venue screamed and clapped as the band took the stage on one end of the large, ornate room. Roped off on the side, in plain view of the band, was a VIP section for the cast to roam without being bothered for autographs and pictures. The after party had been going on for over an hour, and I was just now getting a chance to go in and rest.

Low-lying white leather sofas and chairs dotted the area. Several tables brimming with hors d'oeuvres and chilled cocktails lined the wall. Everything we could ever need was at our fingertips including a wait staff.

"Is there anything you would like to drink, sir?" a man asked.

"Scotch on the rocks," I answered.

Taking an empty chair, I rested back and listened to the song being played. I recognized it as "Cold Desert," one of the songs from the soundtrack._  
_

"Here is your drink, sir. If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask."

"Thank you," I whispered.

Since I had arrived, I had been meandering through the crowd kissing this person's ass and the next person's ass in between glasses of scotch. I didn't know how many I was up to tonight. Somewhere out there in the throng, I had lost count. The liquid was cold and soothing as it slid down my hot throat on the way to making me feel like I could get through the night without screaming. I couldn't stop. Not that I wanted to. The relief felt too good.

_Two songs. _That's all Jane said I was required to stay for, and the first was almost done.

While I was in here by myself, Jane was out there schmoozing with important people, spreading one lie after the other about my upcoming "project," avoiding the one answer she knew she'd be giving in a few months' time. She didn't like it. It hurt her, and it hurt me to tell her, but I knew that I had made the right choice.

As I finished off my newest drink, another showed up on the table next to me without even having to say anything, and I laid my head back and closed my eyes as the last song I would hear this evening before I left began playing. My eyes didn't stay closed long, though, as the lyrics crashed into my ears.

_Stranded in this spooky town  
Stoplights are swaying and the phone lines are down  
This floor is crackling cold  
She took my heart, I think she took my soul  
With the moon I run  
Far from the carnage of the fiery sun_

My breathing accelerated as I processed what he was singing. If my eyes weren't fooling me, I would have sworn he was staring directly at me as the words were spoken, like they were only for me to understand and hear.

_Driven by the strangle of vein  
Showing no mercy I'd do it again  
__Open up your eyes  
You keep on crying, baby  
__I'll bleed you dry  
The skies are blinking at me  
I see a storm bubbling up from the sea_

The photos of her crying had haunted my every thought and dream since yesterday.

_And it's coming closer_

Why was she crying?

_And it's coming closer_

The tears streaming down her cheeks were tears I had seen so many times before. The upset look on her face was something I had kissed away time and time again. One sweet brush here. One passionate embrace there.

_You, shimmy shook my bone  
Leaving me stranded all in love on my own  
What do you think of me?  
Where am I now? Oh, baby where do I sleep?  
Feels so good but I'm old  
Two thousand years of chasing taking its toll  
_

Rosalie had said that I needed to fight for her and the love that we had.

_And it's coming closer _

But I loved her and laid it all out on the table what I wanted to give to her, and she said she didn't want it. Shouldn't _she_ be the one to fight for me if I was what she wanted?

_And it's coming closer _

I didn't screw this up.

_And it's coming closer _

She told me to leave. I did as she said.

_And it's coming closer_

And, Jesus Christ, I never should have.

"Why am I here?" I groaned. Ever since I'd left Forks, I'd fought off the sadness that was creeping in from all corners, threatening to consume every part of me and ruin me. It had begun to win the battle, though. Little things here and there picked away at my resolve, sending me spiraling into a darkness that frightened me. I needed to stay angry. I couldn't let it win.

And I _was_ angry... so fucking angry. But I was only angry that I was here, and she was there, and she wasn't calling for me. She was mine to kiss. She was mine to hold. She was mine to fix. Why didn't she want me there? Why didn't she want _me_?

"I've got to get out of here," I muttered, unsteadily standing from my seat. A hand reached out to hold me upright, and I didn't push it away as I stumbled for the exit.

A cold chill hit my face as soon as I walked outside, and a man in a suit met me on the sidewalk. "Your ride is this way, ma'am, sir." He escorted me and whoever was on my arm to a limo that seemed to be miles away, and I vaguely picked up on light streaking through the air as I slid into the back.

"Is it lightning?" I slurred.

A faint chuckle rumbled from his throat. "No, sir. Those are cameras. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mr. Cullen. You, too, Ms. Paul."

_Oh God._

"We will," she breathed, sliding in next to me.

Unsuccessfully, I tried to move to another seat away from her, knowing full well what she was doing, but the limo turned out into the road abruptly causing me to spill over sideways into her lap.

"Whoa, big boy! Wait until we get to the room at least. The Mandarin is just down the street a few blocks."

_Oh God. _Righting myself, I crawled onto the long bench of black leather seats, but she followed, sliding her hands along the smooth material toward me.

"I won't have sex with you again, Tanya. Sex with you before was a mistake."

She smirked. "Sex with me is never a mistake. You know you loved it."

"You ruined my life."

"You know you still want me."

"Are you even listening to yourself?" I shouted.

"I listen to my body, and my body wants _you_." My back met the front wall of the limo, and I pulled myself across to the other side with her still following me, slinking closer and closer.

"Is that what happened when you started cheating on James? Your body told you to fuck me and you listened?"

"_James?"_ she asked.

"Excuse me?" Why did she say his name like that, in the form of a question?

"Who is _James?_"

I stopped moving in shock. "Your ex-boyfriend! The man you were cheating on when you were sleeping with me! The man that burst into your room while we were fucking! The man that wanted to kill me and the woman that I love because he wanted revenge! The man that just died because of his sick love for you!"

"Oh, him," she quipped, shrugging. "He was always a little obsessed with me, and that was a major turnoff, but I've never looked better in photos. He always went out of his way to get the best shot from the best angle."

"You... you were..." Words were sputtering out of my mouth in no form of a sentence. Who the hell did she think she was? "You were just using him? You strung him along to the point that he fell in love with you just so no bad photos of you were taken?"

"I'm very powerful," she breathed. Just then her hand came down on my thigh, and the door to the limo opened in front of the hotel.

I couldn't tell you what the faces of Tanya or the limo driver looked like as I practically ran for the revolving door. They most likely mirrored the stunned facial expressions of the valet attendants and the surprised tourists in the lobby as I passed on my way to the elevators that would take me to my room. Where I would be safe from Tanya's advances. Where I could sleep away the alcohol that made me irrational. Where I could regroup and get my head back.

_I don't want to feel sad, yet. Sadness is worse than anger. Sadness is when I lose my mind._

* * *

"Welcome back, Mr. Cullen. I'm Felix." A large, muscular man in a uniform with dark hair stood in front of me extending his hand as I exited the air bridge from the plane. "I am head of security for LAX, and I understand you had a problem with paparazzi when you arrived at your terminal on Wednesday?"

"Ummm, yes?" I questioned, unsure of where this was going. A line of passengers were pushing their way around us, so he led me off to the side to get out of the way.

"You use our airport frequently, sir, and it's important to us that you are safe. In addition to that, if your safety is being compromised, so is the safety of the other travelers. We take that seriously."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his business card.

"This is for you. Please call at any time of the day to inform me if you are planning on utilizing our airport. We would like to provide you with an escort to your gate as a convenience as well as a precaution. My card has the main LAX information on it as well as my personal contact information."

"Thank you," I blurted out. I was sure the order came from higher-ups as a way to avoid getting sued in case of an accident, but I was grateful that they saw it as enough of a problem. Protect other people, protect me, whatever. As long as there was someone else to calm the frenzy, I was happy.

"I've been informed that your driver and car are waiting for you outside the terminal already. If you will follow me, I will get you over to baggage claim and through the mess at the door. My staff has held them outside this time. You draw quite a crowd."

"You aren't kidding," I muttered.

According to Jane, Tanya flew back early to get ready for Jimmy. As it was, I was going to have to rush to the studio for the early taping. I had to rely on my luggage to provide me with appropriate clothes.

"Okay, here we go, Mr. Cullen. Looks like my personnel are holding them tight. Stay slightly behind me. Demetri, another officer of mine, will follow until you reach your car door."

"Thank you," I said. "I'm very grateful."

"No problem. It's kind of exciting. Guess I'll see myself in the magazines soon!"

As soon as the automatic doors opened, the crowd rushed forward, pushing their lenses in my face.

"_Did you and Tanya share a room?"_

"_Was last night your official announcement of becoming a couple?"_

"_Is Tanya pregnant with your child?"_

Felix pressed forward with help from Demetri, a smaller but still built man, and I made it the twenty feet to my awaiting car without much incident. I thanked both of them before I threw myself into the car, big luggage and all, and blocked my face as Alec pulled away from the curb quickly.

* * *

When we reached the studio, I was escorted past numerous people that acted like they had never seen a celebrity before. Gawking and pointing was at an all-time high as I wandered through the various winding halls. Once in the silent, stare-free confines of my dressing room, I emptied the pockets of my jacket onto the coffee table and settled in for the wait.

First in the room was Jane followed quickly by Phil, the producer of the show, who handed us the outline of questions that they had pulled from the pre-interview I'd done over the phone with them. Most of the questions revolved around the movie. Very few were not, and those that weren't focused on uninteresting facts about me that were neither too personal or would lead into discussions I refused to talk about.

"You'll be first on stage," Jane said. "Once your segment is finished, Tanya will come out, and you'll sit in the second guest chair while she takes the first. They expect lots of interaction between you two, so keep the energy up. Play off of each other's answers."

"Okay," I responded, feeling tense. Last night has crossed all boundaries of decency, and the only thing I could think about was getting this interview over because this was it. She and I had no other joint promotions past this day

"Both Phil and Jimmy received my memo and have agreed to refrain from questions regarding Bella and Tanya. I'm telling you this right now, though. You know they do whatever they want because they know you can't make a scene. If a question gets asked that you're uncomfortable with, answer, don't answer, it's entirely up to you. I'll handle whatever comes next."

There was a ferocity in Jane's eyes like she just knew where this interview was headed – like she knew as good as I that one way or another, my personal life would be brought up. It was too interesting. I had too many secrets. Everyone wanted to be the first to expose them, and this show was no different.

Within seconds of her walking out of the dressing room, Tanya walked in, and I inwardly groaned.

"You're looking handsome, Edward. Love the suit."

"Thanks," I grumbled, not really giving a damn. The mere thought of her made my blood boil now. At one time in my life, I had dated this woman and was happy with her. Somewhere along the way, the fame went to her head, though. She disgusted me to no end.

"The airport was crazy the other day, huh? I looked absolutely dreadful in the photos. They always seem to print the ones taken from a bad angle. One said I looked pregnant! You don't think I look fat, do you?" Like it was the automatic thing to do, she began to spin around, touching herself in places like her stomach, ass and breasts.

"You alerted them, didn't you?" I asked, not taking my eyes off of hers to trail down to the areas she was showing off.

"Whatever do you mean?" Maybe if I wasn't a skilled actor and didn't know her style as well as I did, I'd have bought that cute look head tilt she did. But I _was_ a skilled actor, and I _did_ know her style.

"When we left LA the other day, it was like they knew we were going to be there. Now that I know about your history with using the paparazzi, I can't help but think that you called them and said we would be there."

As she stood there looking down at me, the set of her face slowly changed from one of pure innocence to an all-knowing smirk.

"No harm done," she smiled.

"You know what, Tanya?" My hands were shaking in anger as I thought about the harm she _had_ done. My jaw had tensed, and my face was growing hot as each and every instance flooded my mind. I wanted to yell at her and make her see the pain she caused for everybody I knew. But I didn't get the chance.

_Knock. Knock. Knock. "Mr. Cullen? You go on in five."_

"Leave my sight," I whispered, pushing the rage down to an acceptable level almost as quickly as it has shot up. The last thing I needed was to show the country how out of control my emotions were. That was only asking for trouble.

"Sure, baby. I'll see you out there."

"Our first guest tonight is starring in the new movie _In Too Deep, _out in theaters today. You've seen him on all the magazine covers as of late with our second guest. Please welcome your favorite heartthrob, Edward Cullen!"

I slowly walked out of the backstage area behind the curtain to a roaring crowd. Lights pointed at my face, casting the audience into the shadows, hiding them but not silencing them. It was earsplitting. Unease filled every inch of me, because of the unknown of the questioning or the unknown of my reaction, I didn't know.

Jimmy's hand was extended out in front of him strongly as I walked up onto the platform where the chairs and desk were. Plastering a smile on my face, I shook it. The audience in the stands, the audience at home, they couldn't sense that I was scared or unhappy or I would become the prey and them the hunters. I had to stay in control.

"Welcome back, Edward."

"Thanks, Jimmy," I replied as I undid a button on my jacket to be more comfortable. "I'm glad to be back."

"What's it been? A little over two years since you were here last?"

"Roughly, yes. Last time I was on was for my movie _Standing Before Her_."

The audience applauded, more than likely responding to the sign above them flashing on, and Jimmy fed off of their enthusiasm. "Yes, you got an Oscar nod for your role. Excellent movie. Just excellent."

"Thank you. I was very proud of that movie, almost as proud as I am of this one." _Oh gag._

Questions continued to follow the outline with no venturing off topic. Some were about my childhood, some about the movie, and the stress evident in my back and neck was dissipating with each that passed. I had allowed myself to go on autopilot as I answered with the same responses I used in press junkets. Time sped by quickly because of this. And now my individual segment was over. I breathed a sigh of relief even though I knew there was still half of the show left. For some reason, I just knew that I could relax.

"You were excellent," Jimmy whispered in between sips of his water in the mug in front of him.

We were both sitting back now waiting for the cameras to start rolling again after a short break. The house band was playing some jazzed-out version of "Piano Man," to keep the audience energized, and Tanya was behind the curtain getting ready for her introduction while several stagehands positioned a grand piano and microphone for the child phenom that would come on directly after we were finished.

"Five! Four!" Phil yelled out. "Three. Two. One," he mouthed and motioned with his fingers. When he pointed his finger at us, the red light glowed on top of Camera One.

"Alright," Jimmy smiled, accompanied by the end of the song and the quieting cheers. "In a few moments our next guest will come out..." and then he paused, and my heart stuttered automatically.

"But first..." He snickered and shook his head looking down at something on his desk between his elbows. My eyes flew to Jane in panic as soon as I recognized what he had, but they did not meet hers as they were burning holes in the back of Phil's head. _Oh fuck._

"There is just something I have to ask."

He leaned forward on his elbows, angling his body toward mine like what he was going to ask and my answer were going to be our little secret when in reality, _everyone_ would hear this.

"So," he shrugged, picking up the magazine with her in the cemetery and turning it so the camera could get a shot of it. "I know you don't really like to talk about this, Edward, but what really happened with you and this girl? Cheating, paparazzi, exes, murder. It sounds like your own little movie. Everybody is dying to know truth, and nobody's talking."

There was no compassion in his voice or delighted stare. He was proudly sporting a grin because he knew he caught me when my guard was down. He knew what he was doing this entire time. I'd been lured into a false sense of security only to be slapped across the face.

Jane said to answer or not to answer. It was up to me. But as I sat there blinking and the silent moments dragged on, I wasn't sure if I could answer even if I wanted to. What _had_ happened?

_She never loved me to begin with? I ruined her life by walking into it? She resented me for putting her life in danger? She loved me but not enough to keep me? She pushed me away, and I held on too tight? She pushed me away again, and I let go? I let her down by walking away? I left her alone?_

_I made her cry._

"The truth is nobody's business but ours."

Jane was already pacing behind the camera as she talked on her phone quietly but forcefully because she knew that the media would be all over that comment. They would say it was indeed their business as I am a celebrity and it comes with the package when, in fact, it did not. My personal life was my personal hell. The only parts of me that they had a right to delve into were things pertaining to my job.

I was too distracted by my inner turmoil of what just happened and Jane's pacing and Jane's angry finger being pointed at Phil to even notice that Jimmy had introduced Tanya. It wasn't until she was standing in front of me, glancing between me and the seat next to me that I realized she was there.

Jumping from my chair like I'd been struck by lightning, the audience faintly laughed and I slide over to my new place without so much as an acknowledgment that she was there.

"Welcome to the show. It's great to have you on again. You look lovely this evening."

Jimmy was speaking again asking question after every unimaginative question, but I was lost in my own head. Wasn't I supposed to be interacting with Tanya? Weren't we there to promote our movie _together_?

Why was she crying?

The image of her in her car flashed through my vision again and I flinched, just like I had every other time. "Why?" I whimpered in a low cry.

"Did you say something, Edward?"

Jerking my head up, realizing I had it in my hands, I swallowed thickly. "What?" I breathed.

"It sounded like you said something. Are you alright?"

Whether the lighting had changed in the studio or my eyes had adjusted, I could now make out the sprawling audience staring down at me. They were silent for a change, their eyes filled with concern and confusion. They mirrored Jane's.

_Was_ I alright? For five weeks I had nearly strangled myself. I was choking on my own emotions. I wanted to scream, but I suppressed it. I wanted to cry, but I didn't. I wanted to fall to the ground and give up, but I stayed standing. I was so tired of it all.

"No, I'm not okay," I whispered. "I can't..."

"What?" Jimmy asked.

Glancing over my shoulder, my sights fell upon the grand piano again, and my heart spoke before my brain could stop it.

"Can I use the piano?"

Muffled talking filled the studio from the people in the audience, no doubt asking their neighbor what they thought was going on, but I ignored their curiosity.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"I have to do something," I answered. "Can I use the piano? It's the only way I can do this."

"Do what?" Tanya asked incredulously.

I stood from my seat in the middle of the platform, looked down at her and shrugged. "I don't know."

"Ummmm... okay," Jimmy responded. "We're going to take a break and be back after these messages... with Edward playing the piano?" His eyes were questioning me, wondering what in the hell I was planning, but I honestly didn't know. For whatever reason, though, I needed to do it.

As soon as the red light was off on the camera, stagehands were in motion and Jane was running alongside as I darted over to the other platform. "Have you gone insane?" she whispered-yelled, jumping over electrical cords taped to the floor.

"Yes," I answered bluntly. "I've completely lost my mind."

"Edward, what is going on?" Turning around on the piano bench, I found Jimmy standing there with his hands held up at his sides. "Is this about the girl?"

My eyes narrowed. "Her name is Bella," I growled.

"We're back in one!" Phil yelled, and everyone on stage from Jane to the stagehands to Jimmy jogged back to their positions. When these people were taken away from their heavily-scripted, heavily-planned production, things were not as calm and collected as it seemed to those watching at home.

The house band began playing a quick little song as the intro back, and I readied myself by taking a few deep breaths. Inside of my chest, my heart is racing.

"We have a little treat for you tonight," he announced. "Edward has asked to perform a song. Most of you know he's an accomplished pianist. What are you going to perform tonight, Edward? Is it from the movie?"

I looked up at Jimmy and caught the glare from Tanya. She was not too happy about the unannounced change of plans. That was obvious.

"It's not from the movie. I just have to do this. I'm sorry."

Like I was the musical guest, the lights dimmed around me except for a spot that shined down on my face and skin, burning me. Despite the heat, the keys were cool to the touch as my fingers hovered over them and brushed the white and black delicately. And then I pressed down, my fingers positioned to make beautiful music... beautiful music that was going to hurt when this was all over with.

_She'll let you in her house  
If you come knockin' late at night  
She'll let you in her mouth  
If the words you say are right  
If you pay the price  
She'll let you deep inside  
But there's a secret garden she hides  
_

I thought she had let me in. I thought I knew everything about her.

_She'll let you in her car  
To go drivin' round  
She'll let you into the parts of herself  
That'll bring you down  
She'll let you in her heart  
If you got a hammer and a vise  
But into her secret garden, don't think twice  
_

But then she told me she didn't love me, and I didn't know if I knew her at all.

_You've gone a million miles  
How far'd you get  
To that place where you can't remember  
And you can't forget  
_

I sacrificed everything for her, supported her, encouraged her. I held her, kissed her, loved her. I did it for her... I did it for me.

_She'll lead you down a path  
There'll be tenderness in the air  
She'll let you come just far enough  
So you know she's really there  
And she'll look at you and smile  
And her eyes will say  
She's got a secret garden  
Where everything you want  
Where everything you need  
Will always stay  
A million miles away _

And here I was. Alone on a stage. Singing to whoever would listen to my heart. Every second of every day it cried for her, needing her, wanting her. Every day I had to disappoint it.

What I did was the right thing, wasn't it? For her, I would have done anything. She wanted me to go, so I did. If she truly needed me, though, I'd be there in a heartbeat. The photo was swimming behind my eyelids again, and I crumpled in on myself. Did she need me? Were those tears her call?

I had no idea, and I was so scared of the truth.

As soon as my fingers left the keys, I ran off the stage, trying to leave the pain of what I just did behind me. Any smart person would know what happened and why. Everybody would assume it was about Bella. Nobody would understand the searing ache in my chest, though.

Back in my dressing room, my face was in my hands when I heard the audience clapping. Tanya's segment was over, and it took her no time to storm through the looks enraged, almost venomous, as she slammed the door and stood there with her hands on her hips.

"What the hell were you trying to pull out there, Edward? You cut my segment short to play that shit? It's not even a song from the movie! The execs are going to go ballistic!" She was pissed. The fury in her eyes was evident. Who the fuck cared? Not I.

"I don't give a damn, Tanya!" I snapped, shooting up from the couch and enunciating every word with just as much acid as she spewed at me. "Let them be angry! Let the country laugh at me! Is this the face of a man that cares about that?"

"Was that about that girl you were with at the club?" Her eyes are narrowed and her hand pointing behind her, pointing to the stage and to the past. "Was she the one you were fucking in that podunk town?"

"Bella," I responded. "That girl's name is Bella. And I wasn't just fucking her. I loved her! I still love her! I cannot function without her in my life. I had a chance to reach out, and I took it! So fuck you if you have a problem with that."

A smug smile formed on her lips, and I couldn't look at her any longer. Flinging myself back down on the sofa, I put my head in my hands again. I felt the cushions lower next to me and a hand touch my lower back. It was an unwanted touch. I didn't like it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered quietly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"With you?" I snorted. "Hardly."

"I want to help, Edward. I've known you for a long time. Longer than her. Longer than most. You and I share a bond."

"The type of sex we had was not a bond. It was just fucking."

"Okay," she conceded. "I'll give you that. But, while it lasted, it filled some kind of void." Dropping my hands, I turned my head to her. She was sitting on the edge of the seat, her body angled toward mine. "We wouldn't have continued doing what we were doing if it didn't fill something that was missing or make us feel good. You have to be able to admit that."

"That was a long time ago," I whispered.

"Not that long."

My head started shaking, trying to process where this was going. "What... what is it that you exactly want, Tanya?"

"As your friend and someone that cares for you, I want you to move on. Be happy again."

"Move on?" I asked.

"You say you can't function without her. When was the last time you saw her?"

There was a running tally in my head, so it took me no time to answer. "Five weeks."

Her eyes widened, and she nodded her head. "So, it's been over a month? Have you talked to her?"

I shook my head.

"I don't understand what you're waiting on."

I sighed, feeling the tug on my chest toward the north. "I do, but I just don't know if I'll ever get it."

The seconds passed on in silence as we both sat there on the sofa. People ran by outside the door. Pieces of equipment rolled by, as well. Nobody bothered us.

"Look," she said, breaking the quiet. "I'm extending an invitation for you to come over later tonight. Let's get drunk and mourn what each of our lives have become. Yours is lonely and the tabloids said I looked fat. I know you've been to the house before, several times, but I'm going to give you my address to give to your new driver."

Reaching forward, she wrote it down on the back of one of the items I'd pulled from my pocket and set it in my palm.

"I think it would be good for you to forget about your troubles tonight. I forgive you for what you did out there. Just try to start over. You give in too easily. Fight to get your life back. I'm more than willing to help, you know that, Edward."

She smiled at me and got up from the sofa. As she reached the door, she turned around and said, "I'll be upstairs when you come over." Then she winked and shut the door.

In my hand, I held the address to a house that I knew far too well for my own good. The two-story sprawling white mansion in the hills. It seemed like it had been so long since I'd been there, but she was right. Our affair really wasn't that long ago. How things had changed, and how they had not.

_Start over._

Up on my feet, I placed the card in the pocket and made my way to the private exit where I found Alec outside patiently waiting with the door open for me.

"I need to run home," I told him. "But I'm not staying."

"Very well, Edward. I can wait outside for you until you're ready to leave again."

Once at my house, I ran around grabbing a few things I knew I would need and had to stop to catch my breath when the doubts of what I was about to do made my stomach churn. _I needed my life back. I needed to fight._ _Go._

Alec stood outside leaned against the car when I locked the door behind me. My hands were shaking as I pulled the card from my pocket and handed it to him and told him what to do. He simply nodded and opened the door for me to get in the back. And then we were off.

* * *

Pulling up outside the house, I got out and looked up at the familiar two-story. Then I glanced over toward the window that I knew was to her bedroom. The light was on. I took a deep breath and headed toward the front door. Every part of me trembled because I didn't know if I could do this. What I was about to do would change everything, but I had to. I couldn't breathe anymore.

Ever so slowly I reached for the door knob and sighed when it turned freely under my grasp and swung open silently. Nothing had changed inside. Even the smell was the same as I remembered it being not so long ago.

After a minute of trying to calm down, I held my bag tighter around my shoulder like it was my lifeline and quietly headed up the stairs. At the end of the hallway, soft light crept underneath the door casting a warm glow on the floor.

Taking two more deep breaths, I wrapped my hand around the knob, turned it and stood in the doorway staring at the back of the woman that I hoped could help me start over.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

**Jane's outfit and my Tanya inspiration plus her outfit can be found in my profile.  
**

_*head peeks out of hole I've dug myself into*_ Hate me or love me? _*drops back in*_

I want to send a HUGE thank you to **coolbreeeze** for all of her help with the legal parts of this chapter. One night months ago, she and I spent over an hour on gchat even while she was sick going over all of Jake's crimes and what his sentence would most likely be. She is so amazing to take the time to do that for me. So, thanks, honey! Who knows what kinds of fuckery I'd have gotten myself into if it wasn't for you.

I also need to thank **Cullen sister** for being reviewer number 1000. WOW! But the thanks go to not just her. Thank you everybody for getting me there and over the hump. I'm truly blessed.

Also, **I'm planning a new story! **I've put up a link to the preview in my profile. It's called "I Love You More" and it's going to be a little different for me and from this story. I'm stepping outside the box, but it's going to be incredibly fun. Go check it out and leave a comment on the teaser to tell me what you think!

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	31. Chapter 31 Fire and Ice

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: **angst, language**, violence, **lemons**

* * *

Will you forgive me for taking soooooo long this time? No? I'll see if you want to change your mind at the end of the chapter. I want you to get started reading, so one real quick plug here:

**dare-to-breath** has made a _**SECOND TRAILER**_ for my story! It's so effing amazing. This one goes from Chapter 23 on... and then jumps back some with flashbacks from the first video. Here's the link: **http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=8qe3eYJY_Vc **which is also in my profile.

* * *

I have two new songs this chapter (and one down at the bottom):** http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=TmvPGd6_hJ0** ... and ... **http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=e4EqjvnWfRM**

_**I recommend listening to all if you can to fully understand the mood. They helped me write this chapter more than you can understand.**_

* * *

**Chapter 31**

**Fire and Ice**

The air was cold, not just chilled anymore and no longer bearable with only tightened arms and a heavy sweater. It was a bone-chilling cold. One that cut like knives to the skin and to the throat. One that turned breaths from body-heat warm at first exhale to a frozen thick fog before it passed your lips.

Inside was a much different tale. It was comfortably toasty, a heat that welcomed you in and told you to make yourself at home. It offered you hot chocolate and a place to store your coat because it wasn't needed. It hugged you and held you and embraced your every inch, never letting go.

Not long ago, I was in there reveling in its kindness.

Once covering my body, a thick blanket spread itself across the sofa from one end to the other, wadded against the back, and two pillows rested on the end waiting for me to come back and dent them with my tired head again. Surely by now they had given up hope of my return and had risen back up to their original fullness, waiting for the next time. Maybe next time I wouldn't leave them so quickly.

_"Our first guest tonight is starring in the new movie _In Too Deep_, out in theaters today. You've seen him on all the magazine covers as of late with our second guest. Please welcome your favorite heartthrob, Edward Cullen!"_

Tickling trickles slid down my cheeks, and I quickly untangled my stiffened arms from around my torso and swiped at the rogue teardrops that had escaped. They didn't have permission to leave my eyes. How dare they defy me?

But they dropped anyways, like little balls of almost-ice, to the concrete. One after the other. _Traitors._

"Argh!" I exasperatedly growled up to the twinkling stars and the bright shiny moon, frozen in the cold night air just like me.

This was pointless, this avoidance. What did I expect to be able to do when I came outside? To be able to breathe normally again? To be okay for a change? To not see his beautiful, happy face lit up with a thousand-watt smile as he took to the stage?

I was happy that smile was there, don't get me wrong. I was. So so happy. You shouldn't let these tears fool you. Inside, even if it was so very deep inside, somewhere in the intricate coursing of my veins, it was there, that happiness. Maybe I couldn't feel it, for that part of me was so small, but... it had to be there.

"Go back inside," I muttered, audibly willing myself to spin around and open the door. So I listened. The heat didn't betray me. Not like my tears. As soon as I turned the knob, there it was again, enveloping me in its luxury. I sighed and slowly shut the door behind me with a click.

"_Edward and I had worked together before when we were younger, and it was truly amazing to work with each other again."_

Hand on the lock ready to turn, I stopped moving.

"_I mean, we always had great chemistry, but this was something special. Like even after all that time apart, we still knew each other in the most intimate way possible and could translate it to screen."_

"No," I whimpered.

"_You can really feel the connection we have during our love scenes. It's raw and animalistic. There is no way you cannot react to passion like that as a viewer."_

I didn't know I was moving until I could see her on the television and not just hear her talking. She was beautiful and sun-kissed and so very strawberry blonde in her chair. So not me.

"_Did you say something, Edward?"_

The tip of my finger slammed down on the button on the front of the television with such brute force that pain shot up through the bone and it bounced off like it'd been scorched. The glimpse of him next to her was short-lived – the quickest glimpse in the history of quick glimpses – but it was just long enough to do damage.

I backed away, clutching at my aching chest, staring at the black screen that just moments ago showed that beautiful face of his – a face so memorable with its angular jaw, green eyes and pouty lips. That face could never be forgotten even if I tried. And I _had_ tried. I had _begged._

The sun always went down far too early in the day. Every night, darkness bathed me in its haunt and lured me toward a sleepless dream.

Just like before, just like now, despite every plea and every tear, I was always fighting it off, though I could not stop it. Exhaust crept in unannounced, first starting in my mind and then slithering to my eyes. When it was thoroughly done there, it absorbed through my pores and overtook every cell. Its weight pulled me down. I couldn't move under it. It sat on my shoulders until I collapsed and then ravaged my insides until I gave in and closed my eyes.

I didn't want to sleep. Why did it not understand that?

I would have given anything if I could have stayed awake.

Because his face... it was just too beautiful, too serene, unforgettable and always... _there_.

The face staring back at me in my bathroom mirror was anything but beautiful and serene. The dark purple under my eyes, my skin complexion and the shape of my mouth all hinted at a deep sadness, one that had been there for far too long. I was pale and sunken. Not pretty. Not sun-kissed or boy-kissed. Boy-kissed lips were plump like _hers_. Mine just frowned.

I was so tired of being so sad.

On my bed, my laptop computer sat cold and unused for the past twenty-four hours. Pressing the button, it powered to life and hummed happily with a purpose again.

Each night was the same anymore. I came home. I made dinner-for-one if I was hungry. I watched television until nothing was on. Then I went upstairs, listened to music and wrote.

Words filled up the bright screen, overflowing from one page to the next. There was no order to my thoughts as I jotted them down. It was so unlike my style when I wrote books. In those instances, I outlined and planned to the hilt. With this, though, my fingers typed out whatever crossed my mind.

My laptop was a good listener. She didn't judge me for my wrong-doings or deepest thoughts. And except for the music she played, which sometimes if not always helped me with what I needed to get out, she sat there quietly and didn't say a word to deter me from expressing myself. She was what I needed – a silent replacement for another one of my losses._ Esme._

Lying on the bed, I selected a playlist from my music and then stared at the blinking cursor while the first song played, waiting for the sentences I knew would eventually come to tumble out of my fingers.

_I walk barefoot where the water drowns the sand  
With you no longer here to hold my hand  
I let go  
I let go_

_The ocean makes my swelling heart feel small  
With the sounds it makes you won't hear it if I call  
I let go  
I let go_

_There's a breeze in the air  
There's a boat anchored out here  
There's a calm under the waves as I choose to sink_

_Your skin protected me from sunbeams  
Your hands made sure I'd stay intact  
I let go  
I let go_

_You were always there to walk me home  
With you not here, the streets I roam  
I let go  
I let go_

_There's a breeze in the air  
There's a boat passing over there  
There's a calm under the waves as I choose to sink  
_

_With your voice in my head  
I could float here instead  
But there's a calm under the waves  
So I choose to sink_

_I'm tired now  
__I'll see you when I wake up  
I've heard it's pretty where you are  
__I let go  
__I let go_

Wiping another stray tear from my eyes, I yawned and began to type using my freshly cut open heart as a tool to share my pain.

_I am such a liar. My God, for nine years I have lied to every person I know, including myself. How is it that they all still love me? Is it a testament to who _I_ am despite my flaws or is it a testament to who _they_ are? Maybe it's a little of both._

_I just listened to a song, and this one lyric keeps jumping out at me._

"_I let go."_

_So many times I told him that I would never let go. He asked me not to, and I promised I wouldn't. And there lies the lie. He may have left me alone in those woods, but I left him so much sooner than that. From the moment he took me to Seattle, I was already letting go of our past, of our present and of our future so that I could do what I needed to do. But the way he clung to me and tried to keep me with him at all times – I almost felt like he knew I was leaving. Like he could feel me slipping away._

_And then, despite all odds and all attempts to the contrary, I lived. He found me in that bookstore and saved my life._

_It was all over._

_Our love had pulled us through something completely out of control, and it had survived along with us. Everything should have been okay. But I saw how angry he was afterward – at everything._

"_Look at her!" he yelled in the hospital room._

_Look at me? In that second, I wanted to disappear. Were my bruises hideous? Could he no longer look past my flaws and see the real me underneath? What had I done to the man that I loved and the man that loved me?_

"_I would have hated you, Bella!"_

_I know he hates me now. He said these words when I told him that I had planned on sacrificing myself for him. Isn't that what I ended up doing in the end, just not how I had originally planned? In his own words, look at me. I guess, look at what's left of me. I'm a shadow of the person I once was. All because I couldn't let him make his own decisions._

_At least now he is._

_The girl he chose? She's gorgeous. They look good together. Part of me screams that it's all made up – that there is no Edward and Tanya. That part can't see how he would go back to her after what happened, but the other part of me sees... a rightness about it, like she belongs there at his side. Beauty with beauty. Larger than life with larger than life. They share a past, one that I know so much and so little about at the same time, so wouldn't they make sense?_

_Sometimes when I think about them together, I say to myself that I could love him better. But look at what I did to him._

_Edward would have done anything for me. Anything at all. Board a plane to save my life when he had other obligations. Pull out all the stops to give me what I wanted, no matter how insignificant or highly risky. Bore the brunt of a vicious character attack to keep the focus on him. Beg for the bullet that was meant for me._

_Quit his job._

_He loved me more than I ever deserved, and I told him that I never did to get him to leave. What kind of person could even say those words after all that we'd been through?_

_Maybe she _is_ better to him than I could ever be._

_By the way, it hurt to say those words more than any other words I've ever spoken. It still hurts every day. Sometimes it feels like the pain is getting worse. Isn't that the opposite of what it's supposed to do? _

"_Time heals all wounds."_

_I don't buy it._

_Each morning I think that I don't know how much more of this pain I can take, but when it's all said and done and the sun has gone done again, I know that I have to hang on and be strong. Because of that face..._

_If he's truly happy like his face shows, then how could I ever explain to him what I did and why I did it? Would he even care that I can't breathe or that my need for him is crippling... or that I am slowly dying on the inside without him?_

_There are so many questions I have and no answers to any of them._

_So I'm left here – alone and suffering. I'm not saying I don't deserve to suffer. Maybe a lifetime of suffering is what is meant for me. Nine years down, right? But the selfish part of me and the part of me that knows I screwed up have teamed up and want a reprieve._

_Is it too much to want to go an hour without crying? Am I crossing the line by asking to be allowed to breathe again without the air quivering in my throat signaling an impending breakdown? Is wanting to go to sleep without him there to taunt me with his happiness too much of a request?_

_As the days and nights pass by with no respite... I'm beginning to think that it probably is._

Saving the document, I closed the lid to the laptop and stood up before walking over to the windows to stare out into the nothingness. I wasn't sure what I expected to see out there. With the lamps on in my room, even the things lit by the brilliant moon were sucked into the black.

"Edward," I whispered into the dark, leaning my head forward to rest against the cold glass. My breath from speaking his name fogged up the icy surface, and I absentmindedly traced the tip of my finger through the condensation just like I did as an innocent, day-dreaming child.

I drew a heart, the right side first followed by the left. When my finger joined the bottom point, I scribbled the whole thing out, not one for fairy tales at this age and this level of jaded.

"Your scent is gone. On Monday it was still there, hanging around in the closet in my clothes, and then Tuesday... I cry a lot no matter what, but I cried a little more than normal that day."

Smothering my eyes with my hands, I tried to clear away the fresh wetness, but it was no use. It seemed that I was crying a little more than normal today, too.

"You see," I sniffled, speaking to... nothing, nobody, an inanimate object that wasn't even listening. "I'm supposed to be doing this whole moving on thing, and you're making it a little difficult."

My head was nodding in an attempt to ease the lump that was rising in my throat because I knew what was associated with it. Uncontrollable tears.

"Okay, _a lot_ difficult," I coughed out, feeling the first effects of the lump. When my neck strained, I knew there was no hope.

"What's going on up in my mind is a jumbled mess because of you," I choked. "You've been gone long enough that the signs of you are fading. I can't smell you in my clothes. I can't smell you in the sheets or even on your pillow. Things should be getting better."

I pulled my hand up and started rubbing the ache in my chest above my tormented heart. The pressure was agonizing in the place that used to burst with love and joy.

"They _should_ be. But they're not."

Hot teardrops hit the carpet in quiet thumps near my feet as red fire blazed in my cheeks.

"I'm trying everything to let go of you, Edward. But you've got to stop appearing in my dreams. You've got to stop."

I loud sob rose from my throat, and my hand dropped to my stomach when it clenched in pain.

"I'm drowning in my own tears. I cannot breathe anymore. I'm so tired of fighting against my own subconscious that cries for you. Please, if there is any hope for me, you have to stop."

My voice was so strained as it came out, I could barely understand myself. But I continued crying to him and to what I lost the day I told him to leave. Not only did I lose him and a friend and a lover and a future, I lost myself. I was so scared of the person I had become, so scared of what was left of me.

"Please..." I repeated, my eyes squeezing shut and the hand not holding myself together coming up to grasp onto the glass that was my only support. "Please, Edward... Let me let go of you... Let me let go."

"Never."

Near silence filled the room for several odd seconds as I listened to my ragged breaths echo off the glass in front of me and _his_ hitching breaths from the doorway. Then, as if all my strength was gone, my weakened legs gave free, sending me to my knees in a puddle of tears and hopelessness.

"No!" I wailed into my shaking fists.

_Again._ I'd done it _again_. I'd lost my battle with the fatigue and fallen into sleep before I even knew what was happening.

My dream Edward's breathing audibly picked up, and I heard him shuffle a few feet across the carpet. "Why are you crying?" he asked, his voice as broken as mine. Even from my position, I could tell he was standing still again, on the other side of the room. Just like always. Never moving near me. Torturing me for hours until his dream self could no longer stand the distance.

"The reason I always am. I've lost everything," I cried bitterly. "And you rub it in my face every night. You stand there smiling, and I can't smile back or feel happy because I don't want you here."

"You don't want me?" he whispered, his voice so sad and heartbroken. Affected, even by _this_ Edward, my head whipped around so that I could look at him through my blurry eyes. His expression matched his voice, and I crumpled farther onto the floor, my strength leaving my knees.

"I want _him_," I whimpered, trying to convey my feelings as best I could as I watched the subtle changes in his face from grief-stricken to confused. "The _real_ Edward. Not you, my _dream_ Edward."

He swallowed hard, his glistening eyes widening slightly. "Am I in your dreams every night?"

I nodded minutely and turned my head to continue to face him as he took another couple of steps around the room, making no move to come any closer.

"Why do you not want me in your dreams?" he questioned quietly.

I wiped the tears from my face, but it did no good. New tears were already falling, and I couldn't stop them. "Because you remind me of what's not mine anymore, and it kills me inside. He's _hers_ now. Not mine... Not mine..."

My words were riding out on air, but while his face contorted at them, his feet still pulled him forward, this time a foot closer to where I was on the floor. "He's whose?" he asked, begging me with his eyes for the answer.

"Tanya's," I hiccuped. Her name tasted like acid on my tongue. It gagged me.

"No," he whimpered, taking another cautious step.

"All I wanted was for him to be happy," I continued, "and he's found it. So quickly he found it."

"I... He didn't," he objected pleadingly. "Only you. You're the only person that makes him happy. He's miserable without you."

"Don't _do_ this to me!" I begged.

"Do _what_?"

"The only way I'll ever be able to move on is if I think he's happy. He _has_ to be. That's why I did this. That's why I did everything when it came to Edward. I would have sacrificed my life for his. _I did._ Don't you see? Look at me."

"I am," he choked out, stepping closer.

"For so many years I have thought I was doing the right thing by hiding and lying to everyone. For so many years I have been so wrong. But I realized all of this too late. Do you know what I did to him? Do you understand the damage I have done and what I have given away?"

He stood there staring down at me without saying anything. Sadness was evident in the set of his mouth and in his eyes. It was just like that day in the forest. I could barely stand to see him like this.

"I looked Edward in the eyes and told him I didn't love him," I cried. "And because of that lie that I thought was the right thing to do at the time for him to be happy, so that he wouldn't quit for me, this is what is left of me now. I'm so broken, so pathetic, so alone and so very lost without him."

"But you are none of those," he croaked. "Not when you _are_ with him. Not when you are in love and loved in return."

"And I am only one of _those._" My face fell into my hands again out of pure need to look away from his beauty, though it was a tortured beauty this time. I had even found a way of hurting the dream him. Inside my chest, my heart kept pounding, but it was sputtering, breaking for him and what I had done again.

"Bella," he whispered sadly. Warm breath fanned across the skin of my hands and into my hair, and my head shot up out of the growing pools in my palms to see a hesitating hand being pulled back from the man only a foot in front of me now, crouched down to my level on the floor.

"No," I protested weakly, following his fingers with my eyes. "Touch me. _Please. _Wake me like you always do." His hand withdrew all the way back to his side, and another strangled noise tore from my throat from the loss of a relief.

"You wake up when I touch you in your dreams?"

"Yes," I nodded through the jerks of my body.

"Where do I touch you?" His voice was soft now, not upset, but his patient tone and the sense of calm emanating from him did nothing to quiet my cries and uneven gasps for air.

Staring into his emerald green eyes filled with the familiar love he always showed me and something else I couldn't quite place, I pulled my still trembling hand up to my face and brushed my fingertips along my soaked right cheek.

"Here," I whispered, watching his eyes flicker to my fingers.

"Where else do I touch you?" he murmured.

Alternating hands, I pulled it up and skimmed the overheated skin of my left cheek.

"Here," I sighed dejectedly.

"And?"

My body swayed when he crawled onto his hands and knees and pulled himself toward me again. Closing my eyes, feeling his presence so close yet still so far away, I floated the pads of my fingers over my skin and lightly came to rest on my tear-moistened lips.

"And here," I breathed.

"Do I kiss you there, Bella?"

I wanted to open my eyes to see him, to actually know he was as close as he felt, close enough to cause goosebumps, but I couldn't will myself to do it for the fear of disappointment.

"Yes," I answered shakily.

A single tear slid down my cheek, escaping my closed eyelids, when he didn't respond. My heart was breaking on the inside as I pictured him backing away again, leaving me there alone to continue to cry for him, and my faced scrunched up in agony. _"Edwa-"_

"Bella?"

"Yes?" I replied immediately, thankful that his voice had not moved further away. It was definitely not further away. Was it closer?

"Which one are you?"

"What?" I sniffled, my eyebrows pulling together in confusion of his question.

"You said you were only one. With him, in love or loved in return. Which one is it?"

Deep in my chest, I knew the answer. Flooding my heart was the one thing I had never let go of and the reason why he had never left me completely. It was the reason why I cried when I no longer could sense him in my awake and the reason why I always saw him in my dream. My answer was the reason why I would never find peace.

"In love," I broke down. "I'm so in love."

"That was all I needed to hear," he whispered, and not a second later, I felt and heard him close the distance between us.

I'm sure this motion was swift. I felt the air move around me and blow wisps of my hair out of my face, so I knew it was, but time had almost... stopped.

"_Open your eyes, Bella."_

A memory from my past, a past I shared with the love of my life, slammed into my now, causing my wet eyelids to flutter open the moment before his lips touched mine. Filling my vision was the most scared, pained and elated face I had ever seen in my life. These expressions inhabited his features all at once, contradicting one another in such a way that came to equal something entirely different.

_Desperation._

His lips were so close to mine, a hairsbreadth apart now, but still moving, though it was slowly, and my eyes closed again in anticipation for the sweet relief I knew they would bring.

Closer... Closer... Closer...

There was just enough time to murmur "goodbye" another time before his lips touched mine, and as the spark ignited signifying the last remaining tick before we connected, my eyes shot open to welcome the brightness of a new sun, a new morning and a new day.

But that's not what I saw when my eyes opened.

There was no new sun except for the fire burning in the green eyes that bore into mine. There was no new morning or no new day awaiting me outside of my darkened windows. And my lips, they felt lips. They felt actual lips and not some fiery, wonderful spark uniting them before their touch. No, there were actual soft things pressed against mine, urging them to soften themselves.

"Oh God, Bella," the lips murmured against mine in between their adoration. "You're all three. All three, baby."

"_You said you were only one. With him, in love or loved in return. Which one is it?"_

What were these lips saying? I was all three? Yes, I was in love. I was so in love with Edward to the point of not being able to breathe when I wasn't... with him. _Wait._

_With him? Was I?_

I gasped and crawled to my knees, the somehow familiar, warm lips not leaving mine as I rose higher, nor the emerald eyes that were burning into mine. A hand joined the lips on my face and brushed along my cheeks, picking up more unyielding tears that were pouring from my eyes.

"Please don't cry," the lips mumbled quietly against the corner of my mouth. I had heard this voice countless times and felt these lips against mine. I would know them anywhere, like they were my own.

"Edward?" I whimpered when the hand threaded through my hair and came to rest on the back of my neck. My mouth was anchored to his mouth with his strong hold, feeling and moving and reveling as one.

"Yes," he breathed.

"Edward?" I whimpered more frantically. Every part of me from the inside out was shaking. I felt freezing cold. I felt sweaty hot. I felt out of control. This couldn't be.

"Yes," he hissed against my mouth before I felt his tongue brush along my lower lip. On instinct, as they had done an infinite number of times before, they opened and we were no longer just feeling and moving and reveling. We were tasting and cherishing and worshiping.

His tongue stroked along mine with dominating sweeps, and mine stroked back with dazed hesitance. But even with the contrasting energies, it was... amazing.

It was a kiss that took my breath away. It was a kiss that made up for lost time. It was a kiss that screamed "I love you!" without saying the words.

_Loved in return._

"Edward?" I nearly shrieked. Clawing for anything I could hold, I grasped onto the front of his shirt, a shirt that distinctly smelled of _him_, still expecting it to dissolve away from my fist into the morning light. But it didn't. _It didn't. _"Oh God!" I cried. _How? When? He was just... Why?_

Without any answers to my silent questions, I was pulled roughly into his strong embrace and the skin of his hands brushed along the skin of my everything. He was everywhere at once in the here and the now, kissing my mouth and my neck, touching my face and my back. He was so warm and so comforting and all that I had missed from the moment I pushed away from his arms in the cold, lonely forest.

And he was here. Wasn't he? Was this actually happening?

"Is it real?" I asked, more tears flowing from my eyes as every one of our memories flooded my mind. The tears were the sadness and the fear fleeing my body. With every passing second that he was here, touching me, more of them left. There were so many. And now so many stained my cheeks and soaked our clothes, never to come back as long as he answered how I hoped.

He pulled back, for the first time breaking his lips off of my body since he had placed them there, and held my face in his hands as he stared into my eyes with his equally as wet ones.

As his thumbs caressed the skin under mine, I leaned into his palm. Exhaustion, an exhaustion I knew all too well from forcing myself to stay awake, was rapidly creeping in, and deep inside me I knew the answer before the words even left his mouth. I could feel his arms wrapped around me. His body heat absorbed into my chest. The taste of his mouth was on my tongue. It had to be real.

For whatever reason, it _had_ to be.

"Edward? Is it?"

_

* * *

._

_._

_._

_._

_._

A careful, feather-like touch stroked a line from my temple to my jaw before it was gone again. The touch was gone, but the tingle remained.

"_You are so beautiful."_

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

With the gentlest of pressure, wet, pouty lips brushed mine for a split second before they were gone again. The pressure was gone, but the warm moisture remained.

"_I've missed... everything about you."_

.

.

.

.

.

The slightest trace of a fingertip ran along the length of the scar on the top of my head before it was gone again. The fingertip was gone, but the sentiment remained.

"_Please forgive me for making you cry."_

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

The space beside me in bed dipped and rose, and with the quietest of whispers, I was comforted back into unconsciousness before he was gone again.

"_Sleep, my one and only love..."_

He was gone, but the promise remained.

"_I'll be here when you wake up."_

_

* * *

Plink plink plink..._

Slowly, heavily, my eyelids blinked open just the tiniest bit, disturbed by a quiet noise. After a second of combing my surroundings, they shut again just as lazily.

Fogginess filled my head, but that was the only thing unclear in the crisp morning. Outside, on the other side of my eyelids and on the other side of the glass, streaks of sunlight beamed through the tops of the trees casting my bedroom in an unusually radiant golden glow much different from the dull gray of the rainy early mornings I was used to. My eyes needed time to adjust.

Stretching, I rolled left onto cold sheet and shivered when goosebumps traveled up the length of my arms to my heated body under the numerous thick blankets. Still with my eyes shut to block out the bright, I inhaled deeply through my nose, expanding my lungs for the new day, as my face gently rested into the soft down pillow. Just a couple more minutes... just like this...

_Plink plink plink..._

Hidden in the pillowcase, my eyes shot open as the sound of three tinkling notes of a piano floated through the air, disturbing the stillness.

_Plink plink plink..._

And again.

Though I stared into blackness, a vivid, desperate emerald green filled my vision, and I gasped, pushing off the pillow at the same time I smelled the days-gone scent that once again infiltrated every item of the room.

Panting furiously, faint touches and words from the previous night circled around my entire body while I stared wide-eyed at the corner of the room at a door hidden behind floor-to-ceiling curtains. And I waited.

_Plink plink plink..._

My trembling hands came up to my mouth to stifle the noise that was there at my lips, ready to escape, and I felt it. I felt the tingle on the side of my face. I felt the moisture on my lips.

_Plink plink plink... Plink plink plink... Plink plink plink..._

The simple arpeggio continued, but it was growing from what was quiet at first to something that begged for my attention – demanded it.

"_Is it real?"_

My feet were on the carpet now, somehow moving out from under the tangled covers to the floor, but my legs were locked in place as I shook unsteadily above. Moisture filled my eyes as I held my position only feet from the doorway. The curtains did not flutter. They did not move at all. But I knew the door was open behind them.

_Plink plink plink... Plink plink plink... Plink plink plink..._

"_Edward? Is it?"_

New emotions and power were added to the melody as it continued to progress. At first, it was uncomplicated and melancholy but before I knew what was happening, the tune had morphed into one of great hope and exultation. Tears were pouring down my face as I stared at the curtains and who I knew hid behind them... the man who was singing to me.

_Let's start over again  
Why can't we start it over again?  
Just let us start it over again  
And we'll be good  
This time we'll get it...  
Get it right  
It's our last chance to forgive ourselves_

"_It's all real, Bella. All real."_

For the millionth time, my heart broke for the man who sat in front of me with his head down and eyes closed as the song that he played so gracefully on my mother's piano faded back into the quiet tinklings that pulled me from dreamless sleep.

It could have been my incessant sniffling or my dragging gasps for oxygen, I don't know which, but eventually he realized I was there and lifted his head to meet my eyes.

"I couldn't sleep," he whispered in what sounded like an apology.

"Dreams?" I questioned quietly, giving the only answer I knew to that problem, a problem I knew all too well up until last night.

His head shook from side to side, and murmured, "No, not dreams."

"Oh?"

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"I don't mind," I insisted softly.

"I just..."

"What?" I implored after several long moments when his thought trailed off into the awkwardness that weighed heavily down upon us.

The set of his face tightened as he stared at me across the room, alone in the doorway, standing in only my too-big sweater and slouchy socks. I wanted to jump the relatively short distance – at least in reference to the distance that had been between us for five weeks – to his place on the bench and smooth away the stress with caresses and kisses, but I could not move my feet. They were just as terrified as my heart.

"I just..." he stuttered again. "I can't... I cannot do this without you."

Swallowing thickly, I nodded my head in understanding. He did not mean play the piano or sit there by himself. What he could not do was what it all came down to. It was the simplest and the most difficult at the same time. This one thing was the purpose of every soul. To do it was beautiful. To not...well, that was the end.

"Live?" I asked.

"I've tried to do what you asked," he whispered. "Every day I've gotten up and filled the hours with those things that life presents to us. Breathing, eating, working, sleeping... being."

A single tear peeked out of the corner of my eye and slid down the skin until it dropped off and soaked into the carpet below my feet.

"Being for me is being angry or being sad all the time, though. That's what I am when I don't think you love me."

A silent "I'm sorry" was mouthed from my lips as another tear followed the same path as the first, and his face softened.

"I can't handle seeing you cry," he whispered as he stood from the piano bench and extended his hand weakly in front of him.

"It's all I know how to do anymore," I whimpered. "Because being for me is being alone, and the only person I can blame for that is myself."

"We both made mistakes, Bella," he spoke remorsefully. "I believed you. It doesn't even make sense anymore why I did, but I allowed the words to slice me open when I should have fought for you. I promised that there wasn't anything you could say that would make me leave you when you were begging me to, and I went back on my word almost as instantly as I said it. The first time my resolve cracked, I should have gotten on the next plane out and come back here. It never should have taken me this long."

Curiosity coursed through my veins, reintroducing all of the questions that I had last night when he was there and he shouldn't have been. How was he there? When did he have the time when he was just on television? But first and most importantly I needed to know...

"Why did you come back?"

He took a deep breath, scrubbed at his face and tousled his tousled bronze hair even more between his fingers and then air burst from his mouth in a short laugh. "You'll never guess."

"I couldn't if I tried, Edward. I've barely begun to accept that this is real, so I'm far from being able to guess at why it is."

"Tanya," he sighed incredulously.

I physically winced at the mention of her name, and as the recent tabloid photos of Edward and her together paraded behind my eyelids, a gentle hand brushed down the side of my face out of nowhere.

"No, baby," Edward whispered in my ear, having crossed the entire length of the room in a mere second. "Nothing happened between us. She tried numerous times, and those attempts are what were caught on camera, but it's only ever been you. She's not mine and I'm not hers, and that will never change. Please trust me."

Deep inside I guess I always knew. Way down deep. Maybe that was where the nagging doubt came from. But on top of that, weighing heavier than the trust, were always the insecurities and need for him to move on that had me believing they were together. I needed to learn to listen the nagging. "I trust you, Edward."

"Thank you," he breathed in relief. "There have been countless times I've almost broken down, but while I never allowed myself to, the pain kept building and the need kept growing, and when I saw the photos of you crying in your car surrounded by the paps and you crying at your mother's grave, I lost it. If there had been a flight to Seattle on those departure boards, I would have been here on Wednesday."

Internally, every part of me scowled that someone witnessed that moment I shared with my mom and dad and shared it with the world. Externally, my muted mouth hung open at the fact that he _had_ cared.

"All I kept asking myself was 'Why is she crying?' and the question wouldn't leave me alone. You didn't love me. If anyone should have been crying, it should have been me. None of it made sense. The questions stayed with me, eating away at my will, until yesterday afternoon when I was pre-taping my appearance on Jimmy. On a whim, I needed to sing to you on the piano, though I doubted you'd even watch."

I gasped. "I started to watch but ran from the room as soon as I saw you come out. You sang to me? What did you sing?" His shirt had knotted itself tightly into my fingers on its own volition, and he pulled himself closer.

"Secret Garden by Bruce Springsteen."

Having been one of my favorite songs once upon a time, I played the song in my mind as I stared up into his eyes. Beautiful yet heartbreaking, it was the story of our lives together, told to the world over the span of five minutes. No intensity was lost, though. What we shared was captured by every lyric perfectly, from the trust building down to the pain that I caused by my own misguided choices.

"You deserved more from me."

"I didn't need more," he sighed sadly. "Do you know what Tanya said to me when she followed me into my dressing room? She told me to fight to get my life back and to start over. She had no idea that in her way of trying to seduce me to come to her house, she was telling me exactly what I needed to hear when the sadness and the madness had taken over. You were always my life, Bella. If I was going to fight to get my life back, I was going to fight to get _you _back.

"Don't you see what you mean to me? I never needed more from you. I already had what I needed. Somewhere was the intriguing woman that gave me a ride in her car when I was stuck. And the beautiful woman that allowed me to kiss her when I asked. And the resilient woman that led me through the forest to a place she only shared with her mother. And the trusting love of my life that revealed her closely-guarded, deepest secrets to only me, which let me know that this thing we had was more perfect and meant to be than any other thing I'd ever known."

Unable to bear looking at him, knowing what I had done, I closed my eyes and dropped my head. "I'm sorry I broke your heart by becoming someone that you didn't know." Not a second later his knuckle was under my chin pulling it back up.

"Don't," he whispered sympathetically. "I now understand why you thought you were doing the right thing. All your life you've tried to protect those you love. I just wish you would have trusted me in why I made the decision to quit acting instead of taking such drastic measures."

I sniffled. "At that time, I knew what it was like to sacrifice everything for someone, and I also knew the pain that came in the long run. I could not see how quitting would be good for you. I was terrified that you'd eventually feel what pain I've felt for years because you had left so much of yourself behind to be with me."

"You gave me no time to explain, baby. Deep in here?" He took my hand and flattened it against his chest over his wildly beating heart. His eyes closed as he inhaled sharply at the shock that jolted between us. "Deep in here I wasn't happy, and I hadn't been since long before you came into my life, if ever. Though I was good at acting, that life was not me. I didn't know who I was, and that's where you came in to help me make the decision because there was one thing I did know and that was I was meant for you, and I was ready to make that leap into the unknown to find my happiness _with you_."

A sob erupted from deep within my body, and he tucked his hands around the side of my head and neck to hold me up.

"I still quit, Bella. Even after you were gone. I was never quitting for you. I was quitting because of you. You opened my eyes to the good stuff in life and all of its beauty and endless opportunities for happiness. And now I have every opportunity in the world to find that because I'm going back to school. I'm terrified, but I see my mom and I see her smile, and I think about how it worked for her. In a crazy decision, she got out of bed and decided to make a change, and look where she is. I need what she has."

Every part of my body was charged as I stood there bawling my eyes out. So many days I cried like this, and now I knew I didn't need to. That fact made me cry harder. "I never knew. I thought you were happy, Edward. You were always smiling when I watched you work."

"I was smiling because you were there," he whispered while his finger plucked the tears from the corner of my eye.

"All this time..." I sobbed, not finishing my sentence.

"All this time you were waiting for me to be happy," he whispered. "And all this time I was waiting for you to tell me you really did love me. All this time we were waiting for each other."

"I am so sorry for everything," I cried. "I'm in love with you, Edward, and always have been. Every day got harder being apart from you. I told myself that I could hang on forever because that was the only way, but when my dad helped me realize how wrong I was, it was too late. You were with her, and I was alone. It hurt more than I ever thought possible. I was out of my mind with regret and grief."

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry, too. I'm in love with you and always have been. When I pulled up outside the house last night, I didn't know how this would turn out. I knew it would hurt badly if you truly didn't love me, and when I saw you again there at the windows, that was when I realized that I wouldn't survive it if you turned me away. I thought you were for a moment, but I finally fought for you. I fought to get my life back." He paused to take a shaky, hesitant breath and then continued. "I guess only one thing remains."

Filled with water, I blinked my eyes to try to clear my vision so that I could read his face. I didn't understand. "What one thing?" I asked.

The back of his fingers brushed adoringly along my cheeks and then came to a stop at my chin. "Can we please start over?"

I nodded a few moments later knowing this was it. We were starting over. Making it right. Forgiving ourselves. Trusting one another. Giving in to what was fated on that late August day outside my bookstore. Accepting that this thing between us was deep and rooted. We could not break what we had. We had tried with all of our might by hurting one other and ourselves, but here we were together. And we loved each other.

Releasing his touch, he stepped back, and my eyebrows immediately scrunched up in confusion. "What are you doing?" I breathed.

His eyes glistened with new unshed tears, and then he spoke. "I'm starting over," and then he extended his hand out in front of him and held it there. "I'm Edward Cullen," he stated, his voice quivering.

I stared at his hand and then at his face not understanding what he was doing and why he was being so literal, but not wanting to disappoint him ever again, I pulled my hand up and placed it in his palm. I trusted him. "I'm Isabella Swan."

His strong hand squeezed my weakened one and then pulled me forward so that he could lean down to my ear. I shuddered at the heat from his breath on my neck. "Just Edward, please," he whispered.

At these words, every emotion from joy that he was back to despair that we'd lost so much time together flooded out of me in a torrent of tears that were uncontrollable. This right here, this was what we needed. It wasn't a clean slate by any means. We had a history. We'd gone through too much. But in a time that we could have floundered, he brought us back to who we were – not just to that day we met but to the core of us.

No longer Hollywood's biggest star, he was Just Edward. No longer hiding behind a lie, I was...

"Just Bella," I sobbed.

"Just Bella?" he murmured against the wet crinkle of my eye with his lips. "Is it okay if I kiss you again?"

My head was shaking side to side because I couldn't believe what was happening and how it was happening, and I knew what I had to say. Exactly what I said that day in the kitchen, the day after he first kissed me in the bar with his familiar green eyes staring into mine, just like the way he kissed me last night.

"You don't have to ask," I cried. "You never have to ask again."

And then his lips were on mine. And his arms were around my waist. And his body was pressed against mine. I was pulled and held to him with a desperate strength that surpassed all other holds. I pulled just as hard and held on for dear life.

Electricity surged from our bodies and collided between us in an explosion that rocked my soul. It was back. I could feel it for the first time since he left, and it was whole. Somehow after everything that had gone wrong, after all of my mistakes, my soul was complete. It took me no time to fully realize why. The man that was swallowing my kisses like they were oxygen had taken it with him and kept it safe until I was ready for it _and him_ to come home.

Home to Forks.

Where he belonged.

Blazing amber light hugged us as we blindly floated from the room on a cloud. I was not afraid. Not of falling. Not of what was ahead. I was safe in his arms, the place I never should have left. The hurt never would have been unbearable if I hadn't. The hurt never would have _been_. I was home, too.

"Love me forever," I murmured against his lips, knowing that while I may not have fully deserved to hear a response after the horrible words that I spoke five weeks prior, I needed it.

I _needed_ the promise.

The twirling of my head and the spinning of our entwined bodies slowed to a stop, but our hearts kept racing and our breaths kept bursting from our mouths into the other.

"Love me," I begged again desperately. "Forever, Edward. Love me forever. I can't do this without you."

His hand came up to my face to calm me and brushed away the hair that had fallen into my eyes. He was searching them for something, flickering his gaze from side to side, looking in one eye and then the other. "Bella," he breathed in awe. "That's all _I_ know how to do. Forever, my love. I'll love you forever."

I whimpered, and then his face descended upon mine again. His movements were slower this time – calculated and tender – and when we were connected again, I sunk in to him from head to toe and from heart to soul. I couldn't tell where I ended and where he began, but that was the way it was supposed to be.

Goosebumps crawled along my skin following the trail of open mouth kisses he was showering down upon me. They started at the spot below my ear and then crept down my neck.

"I missed those," he whispered against the cooling moisture he left behind. On instinct, my head tilted to the opposite side and he continued the same gruelingly slow, beautifully torturous ascent up the other side of my neck, humming all the way.

All nerve endings were alight, and when his hands slipped under my too-large sweater and came in contact with my warming skin, I shuddered.

"Are you cold?" he asked, sprawling his long fingers across my back to pull me closer to his body heat.

"Not cold," I murmured honestly between slow, sampling kisses up his neck. "On fire."

He groaned deep in his chest and gently but possessively pulled my face to his so that he could suck my top lip into his mouth. And I lost it. The noises he was making, the contrasting temperatures, the way he was kissing me and possessing me...

I _needed_ him.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was climbing his body, and he was pulling me up to him just as eagerly with no struggle. My arms were around his shoulders and then around his neck, and my feet were finding leverage on his legs, pushing me up, pushing me closer to him even if by millimeters.

I _needed_ the millimeters.

"Love me," he grunted as my legs tied like twisty-ties around his waist.

"Forever," I groaned back, knowing I would.

With a quick rustling gust of cold air, my sweater was over my head and on the floor beside his feet. I should have been cold. Just thinking about the winter air outside was enough to make a person shiver. But I wasn't cold, and I wasn't thinking about the winter air. What I was thinking about was the way my body reacted to his touch... and how his lips and tongue knew how to kiss...

Moans echoed off the glass all around, overlapping each other in the air, and when my hair fell behind my shoulders like curtains dropping, I knew he was laying me down on the bed underneath of him. I sighed at the sensation when my back met sheet, and he slowly stopped kissing me and just stared into my eyes. Back and forth. Again. Searching. And then the corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly.

"What are you looking for?" I whispered.

He shook his head and took a deep, ragged breath. "I'm not looking for anything, Bella. I found it." I opened my mouth to ask what it was he found – did he not trust me when I told him that I loved him? – but he silenced me with his lips and a thumb wiping the tear that had fallen before I could speak.

"She's back... You're back," he murmured... and my heart soared. I could feel it, too.

Something in the air had changed. There had been a fire since he kissed me, a spark before that, but now the blaze was out of control. It all came back so fast. Just the same as how the passion and the desire and the truest of true love found us before. Maybe they had never left to begin with.

Passion became anger when I broke his heart. Desire became regret while he was away. Love became... well... love was always love. Even when I said it wasn't, it was. I think he knew deep down all along. If he didn't he wouldn't be here with me, and we wouldn't be loving each other in the intimate way only we knew.

Still laying on top of me, he reached over his shoulders and peeled his shirt over his head. As soon as it was gone, he was back to me, breathing me, kissing me, loving me.

"_Bella,_" he exhaled across the skin of my neck.

"_Bella,"_ he groaned against the peak of my breast.

"_Bella,"_ he hissed when he rocked forward into the place that throbbed only for him.

"_Edward,"_ I sighed when his naked chest moved down mine.

"_Edward,"_ I whimpered when his tongue swirled around my protruding hip bone.

"_Edward,"_ I moaned when his fingers hooked into my panties and pulled them down my legs, reverently touching and kissing and nipping every inch of skin they passed over.

I didn't tear my eyes from his when he stood at the side of the bed and unbuttoned his pants. I couldn't look away from the emotion he held in them. It would have pained me to do so. Every time I saw all of him bare in the places that were private to him, it was exquisite. But up above all of that was just as bare this time. I'd seen this look in his eyes before.

Overwhelmed, I relaxed into the pillow and let his unconditional love – a love I didn't think I deserved just a few weeks ago – wash over me like his tongue. Hovering above me now, he peppered my face with featherlight kisses, quieting the happy tears that were falling, always coming back to my mouth.

"You kept crying," he whispered, breaking me out of my haze. I stared at him questioningly but didn't ask what he meant. I knew he'd go on. "That's why I couldn't sleep last night, Bella. I was kissing away your tears for at least an hour after you'd fallen asleep in my arms."

Another dropped, this time for the immense love that he held for me, and I felt him position himself at my entrance. Once again, I was not afraid. Not of falling. Not of where this was headed. Because I had already fallen – in love and into the darkest depths of who I could be – and where this was heading was where I needed to be to be happy again.

He took my hand that was covering my mouth and quivering lip and placed it on his chest over his heart. It was erratic in its beat, almost scary fast. How did one's heart pump so quickly?

"Touch yours," he whispered. Doing as he asked, I rested the palm of my free hand over my own heart, and my eyes flew up to his in shock.

He nodded. "For the hour after that, I held your hand to my heart and mine to yours until they finally both beat again as one."

Pulling my hand from above my breast, I faintly touched the side of his face to show my appreciation for all that he had done for me, and he closed his eyelids when a sharp breath drew through his lips. And with an understanding between our bodies, he rolled his hips forward and entered me. Both of our bodies trembled with every slow inch he pushed, sheathing all of himself in my slick heat.

When his hips pressed flush with my body, an unsteady breath full of emotion left my mouth, and he wrapped his arms under and around me to hold me closer. Rocking his hips back, he pushed into me again, just as slowly, just as full of meaning, and I held onto him with all my might. I didn't want to let go.

"Once your heartbeat matched mine, baby," he breathed, "I listened to you breathing just because I could."

His thrusts were deep, hitting me in places I didn't know I had. He was consuming me, filling every part of me from my mind to my heart to my veins and my sex, and the air kept bursting into and out of my lungs in labored pants. In and out. In and out. In and out. Everything was in and out.

With no warning at all, he rolled onto his back and sat up, pulling me with him. I gasped. I was straddling his hips now as he continued to pump into me, and he passionately pulled my upper body to his to feel my skin on his.

I put my hands on his shoulders and pulled myself up and down his length as he assisted me by holding onto my waist. "Yes," he hissed in approval. His eyes were closed now, but his agape mouth told me everything I needed to know. He needed this connection just as much as I did. It felt good. It felt right. We fit together because we were meant to fit together. It was too much...

Leaning forward, I fell onto his shoulder and continued to raise and lower myself as best as I could with him meeting me in the middle. I was weakened from the last month, but because of him, growing stronger. The flames deep in my belly were also growing stronger. With every thrust. With every pant. With every moan from our mouths. Growing taller and hotter. Burning with a desire to re-learn and re-connect.

He rolled again, never pulling out, and pressed my back into the mattress as he moved within me the way he new would bring me to my heights. Ripples of pleasure rolled through my abdomen, and my eyes shut at the delicious ache.

His warm hands kneaded my flesh, first starting at my breasts and then over my hips and down to my thighs. On instinct, I tightened my legs around his waist and cried out when he shifted his angle to plunge deeper inside of me.

"_Edward!"_

Every steel inch of him rubbed against the patch that would eventually send me over the edge. In and out. Back and forth. My core quaked in anticipation. I was tightening. I could feel my release looming. But I wasn't ready. Not yet.

"Oh God, Bella," he groaned, attacking my mouth again. "You're coming. I feel you."

"Not yet... not yet..." The denial shot out of my lungs on air that he was pounding from me with every exhausting thrust. He was making it more difficult to hold off. I was wet and wanting. He was hard and giving. My body wanted to take it all.

"Come, baby," he grunted, lifting my hips higher so that he could piston himself further into unfathomable depths.

"No!" I cried, pulling myself up to his body that was angled over mine by wrapping my arms around his neck. Our hearts were about to beat out of our chests. I could feel his against my breast beneath his rapidly expanding lungs. "I need this, Edward! I don't want to let go of this!"

My fingernails and heels were digging into his back and buttocks as he held me to him. He had to feel my own desperation in my actions. I didn't want this to end.

One knee forward followed by another knee forward, my back pressed into the smooth cold leather of the headboard, but he didn't stop moving in and out of me... and he didn't stop the intensity.

"Bella..." he panted. "I kissed away your tears... and felt your heart beat... and listened to you breathe..."

The coil was building so tight where he was entering me. It was ready to snap. I squeezed my eyes shut to push the feeling back down to something bearable._ Not yet._

"But for the rest of the night... until the sun came up... I laid there... watching you sleep... touching you here and there... and everywhere... kissing you... when you whimpered my name... whispering in your ear... when my heart... could no longer stand... to hold the words in."

His fingers dug into the flesh of my ass as if I was his – because I _was – _and he pulled me onto him more forcefully to where he was barely moving but instead grinding and swiveling his dick against the spot inside of me and pressing against my clit on the outside. A loud groan rumbled from my throat. It was too much...

"I love you, Just Bella," he whispered into my ear breathlessly. "Just _my_ Bella... mine in every way possible... mine to kiss... mine to hold... mine to love... mine to _make come_..."

Slick sweat coated my back as I slid against the headboard, and I uncontrollably tightened around him at this declaration.

"It's never... going to be over... Bella... It never was... I need you to come... so I can make you... come again... and again... forever... Stop fighting... Because I'm here... and I'm never leaving..."

Like someone had struck a match and lit the fuse, a fast burning sizzle both painful and glorious shot straight to the place we were connected, and I exploded around him in a gasp of garbled curses and moans. With no instruction from my brain, which was lost in Edward, my legs tightened painfully around his waist and held him to me as he groaned through his own delayed release and compact thrusts into me still. The thrusts continued for several minutes as we came down until we both collapsed from our upright positions into a knotted ball on the mattress.

I stared at him, and he stared at me. Brown and green. Love and forgiveness. Heart and soul. And I knew he was telling me the truth. Because we couldn't do this apart, this thing called "living." We both knew how great life could be because we'd found how to do it right when we found each other.

We got lost along our journey together but here we were. We'd found the greatness and each other again, but now we were wiser. For five weeks we battled our demons alone, and in the end, we discovered we could only win if we were one.

This was what it was like to be happy.

I'd never give it up again.

"Forever," he whispered against my mouth.

I nodded. "Forever."

* * *

_All this time we were waiting for each other_  
_ All this time I was waiting for you_  
_ We got all these words, can't waste them on another_  
_ So I'm straight in a straight line running back to you_

http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=lIY_2t0ZKPU

**"All This Time" by OneRepublic - This song has been my inspiration from the very beginning.**  
(The lyrics aren't right in this video, so don't pay attention to them.)

**

* * *

AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

_*rocks on heels, looking everywhere but at you__*_ Sooooo... *picks at fingers, finally taking a peek up to see your reaction*

I promised the angst was leading you somewhere, and I hope you liked it. For your own sanity because I've put you through so much over the past ten chapters with stress, violence and no lemons, next chapter is the last of this story, but don't fret. There will be not one but TWO epilogues to come shortly after to round it out with your HEA.

If you have anything you'd like to say, I'd love to hear from you! We've come so far and experienced so much together!

Thanks go to **TigerGirlNC** for the musical terminology and to **RCD-Alice** for always pre-reading when I need her.

Also, **I'm planning a new story! **I've put up a link to the preview in my profile. It's called "I Love You More" and it's going to be a little different for me and from this story. I'm stepping outside the box, but it's going to be incredibly fun. Go check it out and leave a comment on the teaser to tell me what you think!

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	32. Chapter 32 Forever

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. You're all awesome.

Rated M: angst, language, violence, lemons

* * *

I can't believe I'm getting ready to type these words.** This is the final official chapter of this story before the two epilogues.** I'm blown away by the response that this has gotten, and I hope that this ends in a place that moves you to tears or makes you fall in love with your significant other all over again or makes you believe in the power of love if you didn't before. It's been crazy, hasn't it? I hope this is worth what you've gone through by sticking with me all this time...which for some of you is just shy of a year. It's been my pleasure writing this for you.

* * *

**Chapter 32**

**Forever**

"Oh my God, it's so cold."

Shivers the size of massive earthquakes rumbled from the tips of my toes to the top of my head making me worried for the health of my teeth as they chattered against each other loudly. Forks winters were cold but rarely _this_ cold. Mother Nature was screwing with us.

"The weatherman said there would be a storm rolling in this evening." Across the bookstore, Edward had set his bag down on the table between the sofas so that he could help me get out of my heavy coat, stocking cap, two pairs of gloves and knitted scarf – all of which were still not enough to keep me warm. "He's calling for ten inches of snow overnight."

I groaned while Edward smiled down at me excitedly with a boyish gleam in his eye. It snowed here. More often it iced, but it did snow. Close to a foot of snow was almost unheard of, though. Something about our location near the ocean had a lot to do with how much rain we got and how much snow we didn't, but tonight was going to be an exception.

When I was extra-layers-free, he leaned down and took my frozen bottom lip into his mouth first followed by my top, thawing them in the most delightful way possible. I sighed. He'd only been back a week, and I knew this was the cliché thing to say, but it was like he'd never been gone.

Okay, in all honesty, it _was_ like he'd been gone because now we had issues to talk through and promises to make and trust to regain... but those only came up between the times we made love to each other.

.

.

.

.

.

"_Bella, can I ask you a question?"_

_Head buried in the refrigerator, trying to find any kind of unexpired ingredients to make dinner for two, I popped it up to angle my ear toward the front door._

"_Hmmm?"_

"_Can you come here please?"_

_My brows furrowed. His voice sounded a little strained, and seeming that we had just spent the entire day reconnecting, relearning and redefining our relationship after five weeks apart, my throat tightened in response._

_Resigned that more exhausting yet crucial discussions were ahead, I strode around the corner to where he was standing in the foyer and stood next to him, staring at what he was scrutinizing intently._

"_What happened to it?" he asked in awe._

_Playing with the wires of my former security system keypad coming out of the gaping hole in the drywall, I said, "I don't know, Edward. One day it just... fell off."_

"_Fell off?"_

"_Mmmhmm."_

"_I see," he breathed._

"_The televisions upstairs, too," I added, inwardly wincing when his head snapped around. "Shoddy craftsmanship, I guess."_

_Taking my hand without any sort of hesitation, he pulled me up the stairs to the surveillance room and stopped in his tracks in the doorway._

"_See?" I pointed out sheepishly. "Shoddy."_

_His long deep breath was a clear indication that he was trying to calm himself down. I think it worked._

"_I guess we better hire more qualified security contractors and get this all replaced before Emmett sees the 'shoddy craftsmanship' exhibited by the company he trusted with your safety," he said, cocking his eyebrow in my direction as he bent down and picked up the baseball bat and keypad from their forgotten place on the floor. "He'd be livid with their lack of skill and know-how, don't you figure?"_

"_Are _you_ livid?" I asked, knowing full-well that he was appeasing me._

"_Not livid," he whispered, leaning in to kiss the tip of my nose but still not smiling. "As long as you didn't get hurt when they unexpectedly fell off the wall."_

"_I didn't," I confirmed. "But I don't know if replacing all of it is all that necessary. The danger is-"_

"_Gone?" he finished questioningly, interrupting where I was headed with my pitch. "I walked into your house last night and got to your bedroom without you having the slightest inclination I was there, Bella. I could have been anybody. Maybe not Marcus... or James... or Jake... but somebody else. The thought guts-"_

"_Hey," I soothed, running my hand down the side of his face. He was working himself up, and he needed to calm down. We'd been through too much stress already earlier in the day. This wouldn't be healthy. "If you will only be comfortable with the security back in place, then let's take care of it, okay?"_

"_I've almost lost you at the hands of someone else too many times," he whispered. "And this system, however unnecessary it seems right now, has saved your life when I couldn't. I need that reassurance."_

"_What are you talking about?" I sniffled with incredulity apparent in my tone. Didn't he know? "You were always the one to save me when I needed saving. All I had to do was call out for you, and you were there... just like you promised."_

"_Forever," he murmured against my mouth before his lips fully connected with mine._

"_Forever," I thought back as he swept me into his arms and carried me toward the bedroom, our dinner once again forgotten._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

It was easy finding our way again. It was easy because I loved him and he loved me, and we knew this was right no matter how difficult the process of healing would be for the both of us.

"You look gorgeous today."

I looked down when he released me from the feverish rubbing of his hands up and down my arms and back. I only had on a pair of pants, a cashmere sweater and some heels. It was nothing too special. Dressier than I normally wore to work, but nothing elegant. I wasn't required to wear elegant today. Something on the demure side was sufficient.

"Charlie called this morning while you were in the shower and said that he'd be by to pick us up to go to Port Angeles around one o'clock. Sound alright?" Edward was searching through the duffel bag he'd brought along as he spoke to me. He said he had some work to do that he'd been putting off for a while, so I told him to bring it along.

"That's fine," I replied quietly.

Jake's hearing with the judge to have his plea accepted was in the afternoon. I didn't want to go in the courtroom, but I felt I needed to be there in some sense. I was a part of why he was going to prison. Maybe I'd sit outside the door until it was over and then we'd go home, like it was closure of some sorts. Or maybe I'd... I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was so confused.

"Bella," Edward whispered from his seat on the couch, snapping me back to the present. "Forever."

His hand was over his heart.

He always knew when I needed him.

"Forever," I mouthed back.

Just then, the bell jingled over the door, and I spun, smiling from ear to ear, to welcome a couple into the store.

* * *

Thirty minutes later I closed the drawer to the cash register and leaned on the counter with my elbows to look at Edward.

"What are you doing?" I asked curiously and lightly as we were serenaded by the groans and _'brrrr'_s from the leaving customers.

He puffed up his cheeks. "Reading fan mail. I started on them before, but I never finished. I forgot how many I had." Leaning over, he pulled out two huge stacks of envelopes rubber banded together and my eyes widened. "Huh," he smirked. "There's all the stuff from my pockets that night."

His fingers picked several small pieces of thick paper that looked like business cards from in between the letters and held them up to read.

"Don't need that one," he said, tossing it with a spin. "Need that one. This one's trash." Each card was finding a home on the coffee table, and then he paused on the next. "What do I do when I need one side and not the other?"

"Pardon me?" I stepped out from behind the counter and walked over to take it from his hand. One side of the business card was for a man named Felix who was the head of security at Los Angeles International Airport. The other side had a hand-written address in flowing cursive. It looked like a residential address in LA.

"Think I should sell it to the highest bidder?" he asked.

My eyebrow raised.

"Tanya's address," he answered the eyebrow, taking it from me. "She thought I needed to give this to my new driver so he could find her house after we taped Jimmy together. Only thing he used the card for was to call Felix for me, though, so I could get on a plane safely to come back to you. I wonder if she's still waiting for me up in her bedroom."

His smirk was devilish, and I laughed. I wouldn't allow myself to question his love for me anymore. He came back. He walked into my bedroom. He saved me time and time again. He was mine.

"I wouldn't take any less than a million for it," I finally answered, and he pulled my giggling body down into his lap.

"Look at these crazy girls," he said after kissing me sweetly. He took two opened letters from a pile, and I grimaced as my eyes perused their content.

"That's gross. I can't believe how in depth they go on what they want to do to you. Do they expect you to track them down and make all of their fantasies come true or something? I'm sorry, but 'I want to squeeze and lick your balls and taste your-"

"They're not all bad," he cut me off, ripping it out of my hand. "I get some good ones. The good ones I reply to, especially now since I'm quitting. I figure the blow might not be as hard if they hear it straight from me through a personalized letter."

I turned in his lap to face him. "When do you think you'll start up with school? August?"

"Probably not," he shook his head. "Word is that the distributor will release Emmett's movie around Thanksgiving. If I'm going to be taking classes, I don't want to have to be gone for promotions and premieres leading up to that. I think I'll wait until the following year. That way I can round out my commitments and start with nothing on my calendar."

Before he could elaborate any further, the bell jingled again, and I reluctantly withdrew myself from his embrace to help take coats from the man, woman and little girl that walked through the door. I recognized them as a family that had been to a few of my Sunday afternoon readings to children, which had sadly been lacking as of late.

"Ridiculously cold out there, isn't it?" I small-talked as a way to welcome them. "Is there anything I can help you find today?"

"Books!" a tiny, yet attention-grabbing voice yelled out a good two to three feet below.

I laughed at her exuberance and crouched down on the floor. "I think I might have a few of those lying around. What do you want to read about, sweetie? Kitty cats? Princesses? Bunnies? Piggies?"

"Ballerinas!" she exclaimed.

"Well," I smiled. "I think I have just the thing."

With nods of approval from her parents, I took her perfect little hand in mine and stole a quick glance over my shoulder to Edward as we walked toward the children's section in the back.

And my heart sank.

The expression on his face told me everything I needed to know as his eyes scanned line after line of the fan letter he held in front of him. Something had completely changed from the time I left his lap to now, only a few moments later. Gone was the smile. Gone was the content. All I saw in their place was anguish.

I was about to call out to him, to pull him out of whatever had his attention, when a tug on my pants brought me back to what I was doing.

"Mommy reads to me every night, and now she says she's reading to the baby in her belly, too. The baby kicks my hand when we read, and it feels funny, so I want to get it a new book. Daddy says it's a surprise if it's a sister or a brother, but..." and she crooked her finger at me, beckoning me to bend down to her mouth which she's cupped with her hands. So I did as she wanted and placed my ear in the whisper tunnel she'd made. "But the baby kicks harder when we read girl stories, so I know it's a sister. Don't tell mommy and daddy. I don't want to ruin the surprise for them."

Winking I said, "Your secret's safe with me," before I stood back up and got the smirks from her parents.

It didn't take any longer than her eyes falling upon the pink tutu and sparkles on the cover of my book for her to fall in love, and after another twenty agonizing minutes I said goodbye to the soon-to-be family of four, which was now five books richer – all girl stories, of course.

"What's wrong?" I asked as soon as I closed the door behind them.

"Nothing," Edward answered too quickly, stuffing all of the envelopes and letters back in his duffel bag.

"Something upset you. I know you too well. You can't tell me nothing is wrong when I know there is."

The length of time it was taking him to respond and his lack of eye contact told me I was right. Someone had written something awful to him when he expected nothing but praise, and now he was deeply bothered. The sadness was rolling off of him in waves and drifting to me. I wanted to take it all away. I didn't want him to be sad.

"They're just words," I whispered weakly, and his head popped up. When his eyes met mine, I saw the tears swimming in the depths of his green oceans.

"Those were not just words," he croaked.

"When their only purpose is to hurt you, they are."

"Not just words, Bella."

"What did they-"

"Do you have any paper?" His odd request caught me off guard making me stop asking my question and ask another.

"Excuse me?"

"Blank paper? Do you have any?"

I muttered a strand of confused words under my breath and walked over to the counter to grab a stack from the printer, but when I turned around, I did not walk back to the sofa to hand it to him. Because he was there. And without another word, he crashed his lips down on mine with an intensity that caused me to forget I had anything in my hands.

Only the noise and the fluttering of my pants told me that something had fallen at our feet. But I didn't care. Not in that moment.

"_Tell me what it said,"_ one side of my brain begged as his tongue fell into the dance with mine.

"_Give him time,"_ the other side encouraged softly in the background. This portion of my brain was new. At least its brand of thinking was. Trust that someone could handle their own problems in the way they knew best was something I hadn't possessed in a long time. I was still learning.

I wanted him to find comfort by talking about what was wrong, but maybe he didn't need that this time. Maybe this was all he needed.

I could give him that.

My eyes blinked open as his kiss slowed to a stop, and I could see something different already. The sadness was still there, but so was love and now awe.

"Thank you," he murmured, and I wanted to ask him what exactly he was thanking me for, but I didn't because I think I already knew.

"I'm here if you need me," I promised.

"I know."

* * *

If I wasn't mistaken, the marble bench I was sitting on was just as cold as the air outside. At least the hand I was holding was warm.

"Just say the words, and I'll take you out of here," Edward whispered.

He whispered not because of wanting privacy from listening ears but because even the slightest pitch above that level sent the words echoing off the ornate marble and wood walls of the Clallam County Superior Court. We were the only two people in the hall besides the woman operating the security checkpoint at the other end, but the ambiance of the place was enough to demand respect and quiet.

"I'm fine," I whispered back.

"You're terrified. I can feel your hand shaking."

"I'm just cold," I lied.

"No, you're not."

No, I wasn't. He was right. We'd been sitting there for over an hour, and every little noise sent me into a panic. Why? Because I knew as soon as this hearing was over, so was any hope for Jake to get better. His problems ran deeper than what years behind bars could do to help. This was why I was so confused.

Day after day I was told that I did nothing wrong all of these years and that my heart was just too big. Edward, my father and my friends pounded that into me relentlessly. But I couldn't see it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. They would never be able to understand no matter how hard they tried. This was something only Jake and I could understand because they didn't live it.

We both had issues, neither of us more than the other, but what did differ was the way we handled the sadness. I held it in. Jake lashed out.

Commotion to my right made me jerk my head in time to see my dad walking through the doors in his police uniform, stern-faced. I stood. For some reason, I felt like I was in a hospital and he was the doctor coming to tell me about the status of a patient.

"So?" Edward asked, standing with me, voicing the question I couldn't.

"Twenty-five years, no parole, just like they offered."

Congratulatory slaps on the arm and relieved exhales reverberated up and down the hallway as I was twirled through the air in my dad's arms like a small child. But none of the noise came from me because I didn't feel any kind of emotion and because my eyes had fallen on someone that looked as if he'd lost everything.

"I'm... I'm..."

A tear dropped from my eye as my dad placed me back down on the floor and turned to see the man standing alone in the arched doorway. His tear-filled eyes never left mine as his mouth popped open again, unable to even speak the stuttered cries he just had seconds ago.

"Oh Billy," I whimpered, taking one step and then two until I was close enough to throw my arms around his neck.

"I'm..."

"No," I sniffled. "You don't have to say it."

"I'm s...s...sorry."

"Don't apologize."

"I have to."

"It's not your fault. None of this was."

"I can't help but feel like part of it was, Bells. He's my boy. Where did I go wrong?"

He had completely pulled himself out of my arms and had backed up, shaking his head while he looked down at the floor in defeat. My instinct to take away the hurt was surfacing inside me, and I wasn't fighting it. Not this time.

"You did nothing wrong, Billy. You loved him, and that's all you could have done."

"I could have helped him."

Grabbing his arm, I held him still so that he didn't move away any further. He had to hear this, and I knew he wouldn't hear it from Jake, so he'd have to hear it from me.

"Look at me," I demanded, and I waited until he raised his head. Finally it did. "You couldn't have known we needed help because we didn't want you to know. You did nothing wrong. Charlie did nothing wrong. All of these years you've loved us and helped us as much as we would allow. Jake made his own decisions, and I made mine, but that has no bearing on what wonderful fathers you were to the two of us. We were so lucky to have you. So damn lucky, Billy."

"I just..." he stuttered, wiping at his eyes. "I lost my wife and now I've lost my only child. Who do I call when I have news? Who do I buy presents for on the holidays? What do I do when I wake up in the morning?"

Once again he was backing up, but this time he was headed for the door, away from the three of us and out into the unknown that was his life. I was dying inside watching this man that I had known since I was born falling apart. He couldn't leave here feeling like his life was empty. I knew that feeling.

"Wait, Billy," I said. "Billy? Billy!"

I breathed a short sigh of relief when he stopped with his hand on the door. He couldn't just leave like this. He couldn't feel like he had nothing when that was nowhere near the truth.

"I thought I was like a daughter to you?" I croaked. "You've always been like a second father to me. Doesn't that still stand?"

He made no movement – neither to confirm or to leave – so I continued. "I'm no replacement. I know I could never be Jake. But I don't want to be... because he's still your son no matter where he is, and he _will_ get out some day and you'll be waiting for him. He's going to need you just as much as you need him. This road isn't easy. I'm struggling just as much as he is but only in a different way. So until the day he gets out and comes home, you call _me_. You buy _me_ presents. If that's what you need, then that's what you do, okay?"

I saw the slump of his shoulders and the tiniest nod of his head, and with a quick, icy gust and soft muted light filling the hallway, he was gone without a single spoken word.

My face was buried in Edward's shirt before the door had even shut behind him, and dad was on his radio asking someone to follow Billy home and make sure he was alright.

"I need to see Jake," I said in between soft sobs, finally realizing the reason why I wanted to come here. Edward's arms tightened around me when my dad snorted his disagreement with my request. I pulled back to look at him. "That" I said, pointing at the door Billy had left through, "needs fixed, and I'm the only person that can do that. I know you're going to say it's not my job, but it is. I have a chance to make it right, and I know you can get me in there, dad."

"Baby," Edward whispered. I could hear the fear and unease in his voice, and he had good reason. The last time I had been with Jake, he had almost killed me, and he would have if it wasn't for him. Edward loved me. He worried about me. He only wanted what was best. But didn't he want me to get better?

"Please," I begged, staring up at him. "I need to do this. For me."

With a sigh, his head turned toward my dad, and I smiled.

He did.

* * *

An hour later, I stood at a nondescript gray door with my hand on the handle. My father and Edward were just a few feet away, behind another door that was just as equally boring, waiting for me to enter the room in front of me... waiting for their heart rates to increase exponentially.

Neither of them liked this much. Now that I was here, I wasn't sure if I liked this much myself, either. What was I going to say to him? How much could get done in the time I was allotted?

Ten minutes was the max that dad said he could get. From the look on his face, I guessed ten minutes was the max he could handle with me in the room with a "convicted murderer", so that was what I got. Ten minutes to air the magnitude of my thoughts and try to have them make some kind of positive impact on his life from this point on. It didn't seem nearly long enough, but I had to try.

Finally finding the courage, I turned the handle and took the necessary steps inside the door and shut it behind me. In the corner, an armed officer stood stoic yet ready to act at a moment's notice, much like the two men that I loved behind the two-way mirror on the opposite side of the room.

A single light hung from the ceiling above a gray table, the same color as the door and the walls and the floor. The whole scene looked like it was straight out of a movie, prisoner included.

I didn't know what to expect when I walked in. For some reason, I thought he'd be sitting there in a suit, cleaned up for his appearance in front of the judge, but he wasn't. Instead, the man in front of me wore a faded black and white wide-striped jumpsuit and looked like he hadn't shaved in several days.

My expression probably mirrored his as we stayed in our respective places staring at each other – Jake in his chair, handcuffed to the arms, and me leaning against the door unable to will my feet any closer. It was apparent he didn't know the reason why he was in the room or at least who was coming to speak to him before I walked in.

I had no idea how much time passed before he hardened his face and looked down at the scratched surface of the table.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice gravely and low.

"I don't know," I answered automatically without one second's thought. All reason and purpose stayed out in the hall.

"Then why don't you leave?" His demand was weak, forced to sound harsher than it really was, but I could see right through him.

"I don't want to."

His head snapped up. "Only reason I can see for that would be you wanting to make my life more miserable than it already is."

I blanched at the way he sneered at me with blame and anger lacing every word. "That's the last thing I want, Jake."

"Well, that contradicts everything you've done to me for the past several years."

My knees buckled slightly, and I leaned into the door a little more for it to hold me up. Nothing had changed. I felt like I was back in the bookstore being berated and beaten for mistakes I never knew I was making.

"Are we just going to pick up where we left off?" I whispered, wincing as a dull ache rolled through my belly, reminiscent of that night.

"Better place than any," he taunted, leaning back in his chair like he was getting comfortable, and an anger toward the situation and the smugness on his face boiled up all of a sudden. It caught me off guard, but I didn't stop it from happening. Anger was better than sadness.

"Yes," I agreed for his benefit. A chair sat empty across from him, so I found the strength to push myself off the door and walked over to it to sit down. "Better place than any."

My eyes wandered to the mirror on their own accord, and I wasn't sure why. Was I trying to convey to them that I was okay since I knew they'd be losing their minds on the other side? Was I being truthful with myself? Was I actually okay? I couldn't tell. This wasn't going the way I'd imagined when it played through my mind.

"I'm guessing Charlie is behind there?"

"Yes," I answered, matter-of-factly, returning my attention to him. "Edward, too."

"Of course," he rolled his eyes.

"They love me, Jake. So, yes, of course they'd be here. I've needed both of them today, and they were there."

"Here we go again," he huffed. "It seems you always like to point out how people were there when you needed them like you're rubbing it in my face that no one was there for me."

Why yes, we _were_ picking right back up where we left off.

"I was always there, Jake. All you had to do was ask for my help. Even if I had been better, I never would have given up on helping you. I think that's why I'm here."

"I don't need help," he growled. "I'm not sick. Stop treating me like I am."

"_I_ am. I've been sick for a long time. That's nothing to be ashamed of, though. How couldn't we be after this long?"

"I'm not sick!" he yelled in hatred. His face was turning a dark shade of red. His hands were shaking in the handcuffs around his wrists. He looked like he was going to explode with his anger. Inside, I was shaking just as badly as images from that night and what his anger could do to me made me scoot back an inch from the table to get farther away from him.

"You need help," I whispered almost inaudibly.

"I don't need help! I needed _you_! I loved you!"

"No, you didn't," I croaked, feeling the anger I had felt slip away in an instant. "That's not love, Jake. Love is kissing bruises, not _causing_ bruises. Love is wrapping your arms around someone when they cry, not wrapping your hands around their neck _until_ they cry. Love is butterflies in the stomach, not feet _to _the stomach."

A shuddering breath filled my throat as thoughts of Edward and what he had done for me in our short time together collided with my heart.

"It puts a smile on your face. It makes the world disappear. It tells you to take their pain away. It keeps them in your dreams when they're gone. It leads them back... It forgives... You didn't love me. You wanted to, but you couldn't because you were too sick – you were too far gone – and I don't know if I'm to blame for that or not, but you need help to move past this. There have been too many years of denying everything for you to battle it on your own, but you have to want to heal."

I could tell just by looking at him that he was done speaking to me, and that was okay. Nothing he would say could make things any better. He'd said and done enough. It was my turn.

"I've seen happiness. I've lived it for the briefest of moments. All of this pressure you and I grew to know, it doesn't have to rule who you are. Aren't you tired, Jake? Don't you just want to leave it all behind and start over? We both know how life is unpredictable, but it's also so exciting and breathtaking if you just stop and notice everything you've been given... not what's been taken away..."

Several tears cascaded down my cheeks and splashed onto the table top as my own words surprised me. Jake's eyes closed, and I wondered if he was holding his own back.

"I'll always miss my mother. She is too much a part of me and who I want to become. But she wanted more for me than this. I shouldn't be holding onto something I can't change. I shouldn't continually hurt myself because of that. I shouldn't deny that there is a life that I could be living."

Taking a deep breath, my eyes floated back to the mirror, back to the place I knew Edward stood. "Because how can I? It's right there. It was standing outside my door all along, patiently waiting until I was ready to invite it in. And I am... I finally am."

I got up from the chair and slowly walked toward the door because there was nothing else I could do for him if he didn't want it, but I stopped when my hand fell on the handle because there was one last thing I needed to say.

"Don't heal for me, Jake," I whispered into the door. "Heal for your dad, heal for you, and know he'll be waiting for you the day you get out. Don't let him down."

With a turn of the cold metal in my hand, I walked out into the stark hallway, leaving Jake and our sad past behind, and straight into my life's arms.

* * *

_Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock._

So much had been said today and so much realized.

_Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock._

It was overwhelming, so Edward and I just sat in the living room on the opposite sides of the sofa and let it sink in, in the silence.

_Tick tock. Scratch. Scratch. Tick tock. Scratch. Scratch. Tick tock._

Silence except for his pen scratching on the blank pieces of paper I'd given him...

It was a really long reply to the letter... or a journal to express himself... or... I didn't know. I had given up worrying hours ago. I was tired now and ready to go to bed so that I could wake up in the morning with a fresh start to welcome everything that had been given to me.

"I love you, Edward."

"I love you, too, my beautiful Bella. More than... More than you'll ever know."

I didn't have to worry about the nightmares anymore when I went to bed alone.

They didn't come.

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Something was tickling my nose.

It may have been the most annoying thing I'd ever felt.

I could tell by the darkness on the other side of my eyelids, the sun had not come up, yet. It was too early to be awake and dealing with this. Doing the only thing I could think to do without moving or opening my eyes, I blew a burst of air up to my nose from my mouth, moving the pieces of hair that had fallen down into my eyes throughout the night of sleep. I smiled victoriously. Tickler terminated.

Moments later, sleep found me again.

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_Rustle. Rustle. Rustle._

Something was crunching and rubbing together under my body as I turned over onto my other side and found a cooler part of the pillow. That was... odd. But the light still had not come to make me enter awakeland. I'd inspect in the morning when I was done in slumberland.

_Good night, rustles._

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"Oh."

I think it was safe to say that opening my eyes was the worst idea I could have come up with. Only one word was needed to describe what I saw when they opened.

_White._

White outside. White everywhere. The color white had managed to beam itself all around my bedroom from every angle and direction, straight into my eyeballs. I was guessing the weatherman was right. It had snowed.

Rolling onto my stomach to throw the pillow over my head to block out the bright, I heard something.

_Rustle._

Somewhere in the deep haziness of my subconscious or my sleep, I wasn't sure which, I recalled a similar noise. I shifted, adjusting my flannel pajama pants under the blanket and heard it again.

_Rustle._

My eyebrow quirked under the pillow. What was that? Using my hand as an expeditioner, I pulled it out from under the warmth and patted it across the tops of the covers, trying to find the source of the sound. If it was at all possible, my eyebrow quirked a little higher when my hand came into contact with several sources.

Pulling my head up so the pillow was propped against my the crown, I blinked away the sleep to focus in on one of the things I'd managed to grab between my fingers.

I smiled as my eyes scanned the handwriting.

"_I'll love you forever – every day of forever."_

I remembered those words. They were Carlisle's to Esme. They were Edward's to me. If I knew Esme at all, she probably still had her husband's note of love and encouragement tucked away somewhere safe. I, on the other hand, missed mine. Mine had been taken from me by Jake's actions, though he did not succeed in killing the truth behind them.

"Forever," I whispered as I sat up and stretched my tired and stiff muscles. And then I reopened my eyes to the new day... and my heart stopped beating.

"Oh my God..."

_White._

Heavy, glittering snow coated the branches in a winter wonderland outside my windows. Snow sat atop stones in the almost-frozen creek as if it was icing on cupcakes. And the earth hibernated below a thick layer of undisturbed white powder. But the white did not stop outdoors. No, the white continued in, scattered across the floor and up onto the blankets of the bed, to my hand.

I held the note back up to my eyes and reread what had been written in Edward's script.

"_I'll love you forever – every day of forever."_

Then I grabbed another strip of paper from the bed. There were so many to choose from. Similar length and width as the one I already had in my hand, it said the same.

"_I'll love you forever – every day of forever."_

Looking out at the expanse of the room, my eyes widened as I tried to understand. There had to be thousands of pieces of paper, just like this one. _Thousands._ From the walls to the windows. All across the coverlet. Everywhere. _White everywhere._

Jumping off the bed, I crawled on the floor and continued to pick up as many of the strips of paper as I could that would fit into my fists that were clutched to my chest.

"_I'll love you forever – every day of forever."_

Tears were threatening to fall, but I wouldn't allow them to because this couldn't be real. How could it be? This was straight out of a fairy tale.

"Bella?"

Gasping, I spun around on my knees, still clasping the words – his words – to my heart. Our eyes locked for several long, silent moments until he unfolded something in his hands, and I looked down at the distraction.

"What is-"

"I knew."

My eyes met his again, not understanding. "I don't..." I murmured, shaking my head. What was going on?

His eyes dropped to the sheets of paper in his hands, and he slowly read aloud from what was on it. _"My Dearest Edward, I loved you. Do you know that?"_

A chill crawled along my skin as the familiar words rang in my ears – words familiar only because they were penned with my own hand and mailed on a rainy day. Shaking uncontrollably from fear and shock, the pieces of paper in my fingers fell to the floor again, floating back and forth like feathers all the way down.

"I knew," he repeated, taking a few steps inside the room. "Even before... this. _I had to do this, Edward. It was the only way to show you the depth of my love. I had no other choice._"

His eyes closed, and my hand came up to cover my mouth in an attempt to hold back the sob in my throat. The letter. In all my grief, I'd forgotten about the letter I'd written to him, telling him everything that I'd planned, begging him to pass my love on to my loved ones, asking for his forgiveness for leaving him behind. That's what he was reading yesterday. That's what upset him._ I_ did.

"I never got to thank you," he whispered, and my breath caught.

"What?" I breathed.

"You loved me," he answered. "More than your own life. I don't know if anyone has ever loved me that much before, to do what you were going to do."

My face scrunched up at the power of the meaning behind what he was saying. "Of course I did. I still do, Edward."

"I love you, too, Bella," he whispered, taking slow, careful steps through the room, over the tops of the love notes he'd written me. "Plus que ma propre vie..."

"Plus que ma propre vie..." I whimpered back as he came to a stop only inches in front of me.

"I told you I'd write you a thousand more to make up for what was lost," he murmured. I sniffled as I looked down at the floor. "A thousand wasn't enough, though. There are five. One thousand _I'll love you forever – every day of forever_s for every week that was lost."

"The blank paper..." I cried, finally understanding what he'd been doing all day yesterday and why he wouldn't tell me.

"They are just words on paper, much like yours, but they, too, hold a heartbeat and a life of their own... and a promise."

Movement was caught through the blurry pools in my eyes, but it wasn't until I heard the rustling of paper that I realized he had dropped to one knee in front of me. And I lost it. A sob ripped through me with a force that eclipsed all others as the man that knelt before me in a stance of worship took my trembling hand in his trembling hand.

"I am so happy and so in love – so in love with the strongest, bravest person I have ever known... and she loves me back with all of her heart. And what a selfless heart she has. I've been through a life with her and without, and I choose to never have to survive the latter ever again... Moments pass by. Perfect opportunities slip through our fingers... I can't allow that to happen anymore. After everything we've been through, and reliving it through your letter, finally seeing the struggle you went through without my knowledge, I see that life can change course in an instant, and I choose to not go another moment without you knowing exactly what you mean to me because you have always been and always will be my one love. The greatest love. Life is too short and too unpredictable to not celebrate a love as wonderful and strong as what we found that August day."

Squeezing my eyelids shut, tears poured out of my eyes like waterfalls.

"I want to be your everything, Bella. I want to be the man that you trust when you need someone. I want to be the man that kisses you and holds you when you cry. I want to be the man that loves you for the rest of your long, beautiful life, a life full of laughter and smiles. It's what you deserve. It's what I want to give to you."

His eyes glistened like the snow on the branches, carrying with them a look of unconditional love – love that could survive anything – and out of his back pocket, a small black velvet box appeared in his flattened palm.

"I have a question I've been wanting to ask you for a while," he spoke nervously, swallowing thickly.

My free hand covered my mouth immediately. "Oh my God."

He smiled as a tear broke free and slid from the corner of his eye. With a small nervous laugh, he wiped it away and pulled his hand from mine to rest on top of the ring box.

Paralyzed in place, I stared wide-eyed as his hand gripped the lid and lifted it to reveal the most beautiful and perfect diamond ring nestled inside, a sign of his love for me and a token for our future... a future that was finally bright.

"Isabella Marie Swan, I want nothing more in this life than to be your husband. Would you do me the honor of being my wife?"

In the far distance, a familiar melodic voice sang out from the heavens in pure joy and contentment. This was what she wanted for me. It was what I wanted for myself.

I wasn't cured. I wasn't sure if I ever would be fully. But this man that held a symbol of devotion at the tip my finger was willing to hold my hand through all of the hard times because he believed in the power of us. Together we could laugh. Together we could smile. Together we could love.

And together... we lived.

"Yes, Edward... Forever and ever... yes."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

**Bella's ENGAGEMENT RING can be found in my profile. The chapter when Edward bought it, and how he equated it to her, is Chapter 18 if you wanted to refresh your memory. The letter she wrote is in Chapter 21.  
**

Okay, please remember that **TWO epilogues** will be coming in the next few weeks. I couldn't leave it at just one, as both are needed to round out these characters and their lives so you'll always know that they are okay wherever they are. I hope you enjoyed the final chapter. I can't do the sad thank yous yet. I just can't. I'll wait until Epilogue 2 because I'm already a blubbering mess. Now, if you'll excuse me while I go and blow my nose... Leave me some love in the form of a review. I'd love to hear what you thought of my first story.

Also, **I'm planning a new story! **I've put up a link to the preview in my profile. It's called "I Love You More" and it's going to be a little different for me and from this story. I'm stepping outside the box, but it's going to be incredibly fun. Go check it out and leave a comment on the teaser to tell me what you think!

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating next!**


	33. Epilogue 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. I'm humbled

Rated M: angst,** language**, violence, **lemons**

* * *

**IMPORTANT**

I decided to break away from my normal layout of writing and try something different for the first epilogue. We've got alternating POVs, one character for the present and one for the recent past, and all POVs flow from one to the other. You'll understand what I mean when you start reading. This was a BLAST to write. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. See you at the bottom.

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There is one song for this chapter: **http:/www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=9uLs23vjVmc&NR=1**

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**EPILOGUE 1**

"I want you." It was a whisper. Secret and private. Enticing and seductive.

"You are insatiable."

My eyebrow rose. "Is that a problem?"

"Definitely _not_, Mrs. Cullen," Edward murmured as he leaned in and sucked my earlobe between his teeth.

I clinched and fluttered... everywhere. "Say that again."

He smiled wickedly. "Mrs. Cullen."

"Oh God."

Were first class airplane bathrooms any bigger than those in coach? I sure as hell hoped so. If not, these passengers were about to be treated to the real deal and not this fade to black shit the in-flight movie was torturing me and my vagina with.

What better time than our honeymoon to become The Mile High Club's two newest members?

"Come with me, Edward."

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"Do you have any idea where you're going?

"Of course I do, bro. It's up here a few hundred feet, just around the bend... I think."

Emmett's nose was buried in a trail map with a compass in one hand and a small magnifying glass in the other. He would need to add a flashlight if this took any longer.

We had arrived at the trail head more than a half an hour ago, and according to Emmett, who had been out earlier to set up the campsite with Ben and Jasper, it was supposed to be a quick fifteen minute hike. When that time came and passed, I began to worry if we were even on the right trail. The setting sun was a huge factor in that.

Tonight was going to be great if we ever found the tents. We were men doing rugged and manly things. Camping out. Drinking beer. Cooking food on sticks. Peeing on trees. It was the perfect bachelor party for someone like me – someone who wasn't sad to see the passing of his single days – because I was eager to have mine behind me.

"You're upholding your end of the bargain, aren't you, Emmett?" I asked.

"Yes, sir, I am. Not one single pair of titties will be rubbed in our faces tonight. I couldn't do that to Bella after what happened to her before. Besides, Jessica is the only stripper within fifty miles, and the only people she'll be entertaining tonight are the inmates at the Forks Jail."

"What?" I gasped in surprise, spinning to face Charlie.

"Seems that with Jake being in prison and all, she's got to get her kicks somewhere," he said.

Garrett smiled. "She solicited one of my friends for money at The Library last night while we were out drinking."

"I didn't even have to lie like I did with Jake to get that tramp behind bars for a few days," Charlie laughed. "That's what she gets for screwing with my daughter."

"_I told you!"_

We all started out of our own excitement of deserved revenge and turned our attention to Emmett's excitement consisting of jumping up and down and pointing through the trees toward something up ahead.

"The tents," I sighed, relieved, and Emmett took off running with such eagerness and enthusiasm that I wondered whose bachelor party this really was.

"_YES! YES! YES!"_

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"You just had to yell out, didn't you?" I grumbled.

"I'm sorry, Bella, but sometimes I can't control the things that come out of my mouth while I'm fucking you."

A woman gasped at Edward's not-quiet-enough whisper as we passed by her on the way back to our seats, both of us being closely monitored by one very keen flight attendant who just happened to be walking by the lavatory as we flew over Orgasm Town.

Throwing myself into his window seat, I crossed my arms over my chest. "Next time I'll have to remember to gag you with something, I guess."

"Oooooh, that's kinky, wife, but am I hearing an underlying message there? Are you saying we'll be trying that out again?"

I wanted to tell him no. I really did. The last thing he needed right now was the promise of more amazing, albeit probably illegal, sex, but my oh my. That bathroom may have been small, but Edward was definitely not, and he could get me off wherever and whenever he desired.

A delicious shudder rippled through me, straight to the still-throbbing place between my legs, so I slammed my thighs shut and scowled at him to hide the fiery lust in my eyes.

We still had five hours left in our flight.

I had to stop thinking about my husband's dick.

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"It's huge!" I shouted in awe.

Charlie, Garrett, Jasper and Ben stood proudly around the fire in the center of our campsite. They had managed to start one massive blaze while Emmett, my father and I had arranged the food and alcohol supply, as well as the sleeping bags.

"Well done, men," Jasper saluted, tapping the end of his butane lighter with the other three. "It was a hard job, but somebody had to do it."

Ben bent down and picked up the extra large bottle of lighter fluid to get it away from the six foot flames, and we all grabbed a beer from the coolers.

"Okay, fellas, let's address why we're here tonight before we get drunk and forget." Emmett sat down on the log next to me and raised his bottle in the air. The others did the same. "Here's to my brother finding and asking the woman he was meant to love to marry him, and here's to tonight. I hope it's an evening you never forget."

The crisp, cold liquid felt amazing as it met the back of my throat but that was short-lived because Emmett decided to tack on one more toast at that exact moment.

"Oh, and to finally losing his virginity next Saturday!"

"Ummmm, Emmett?" dad laughed tensely, chancing a look over at Charlie who was shaking his head in his hands as I wiped the beer off my chin that I'd choked on.

"Evidence would prove otherwise," Charlie groaned. "Literally."

I died a little inside knowing that Charlie was reliving the very revealing, very nude pictures of me and his daughter engaged in window fun, and Emmett leaned over to my ear so that I could hear him over the crackling of the fire and the laughter of the guys. "What's a bachelor party without lots of humiliation?" he asked. "You better drink up, Eddie boy. I'm here all night."

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"_Welcome to Charles de Gaulle International Airport. Local time is 6:15 a.m. Please remain seated with your seat belts fastened until the aircraft is parked at the gate and the captain has turned off the fasten seat belts sign. We ask that you be careful when opening overhead compartments, as items may have shifted during flight. It has been a pleasure having you aboard Air France. We hope to serve you again soon."_

Passengers were nearly exploding with excitement all around. Some were happy to be on their first official day of vacation in Paris. Others were happy to be home. Edward and I simply stared at each other, though, with no idea what to do. Hundreds of people crowded the aisles to get their hands on their luggage in the bins above, but our hands were content resting in each other's.

I had been buzzing with energy since we'd stepped foot on our first flight in Seattle, but now that we were here, finally on our honeymoon after a perfect wedding, I was relaxed. No more bouncing off the walls. No more restlessness. Just my husband and I in one of the most romantic cities in the world.

"I love you," I whispered.

"I love you, too," he whispered back, kissing me sweetly on the temple.

This was happiness.

"_OH! MY! GOD! You're Edward Cullen!"_

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"Why couldn't they leave us alone? Seriously! Look at this magazine, Jasper Whitlock. Lookie at my baby's sad face."

He ripped it from my hands and blinked away the alcohol swimming around in his eyeballs. "I'm lookin', Eduardo, and I'm not likin'." And with a toss, it ended up in the incinerating flames just like the rest of the magazines from the car trunk that day that he and my dad had bought the town out.

Grabbing a handful from the pile on the ground, I did the same as Charlie somewhere off in the distance shouted, _"I told you we'd burn these sons o' bitches in celebration some day! Woohoo!"_

"What kind of name is Eduardo?" Jasper asked, switching gears after seeing my name on another cover. "Why did your parents name you that?"

"My grandpa's name was Eduardo," I shrugged. "Why did your parents name you Jasper Whitlock?"

He took another swig of beer and stumbled to the right. "It was my daddy's mama's uncle's dog's grandpa or something like that. He was a major in the Confederate Army. Ended up picking a fight with a cannonball, and the cannonball won. My parents doomed me to get injured in the war with that name. What a couple of jackasses."

"That was not nice of them!"

"No, it wasn't!"

We pounded fists because that's what men did when they agreed on something. You can Google it.

"Bella has a hand-me-down name like me and you, Jasper Whitlock. Her middle name was her grandma's. I love her name. Isabella Marie... Bella Marie... So pretty... Bella is so pretty. I want to have sex with Bella all the time because she's so pretty. In fact, I want to have sex with her right now. I think I will."

Dropping the magazines to the ground, I waved to the guys across the expanse of the fire-lit campsite, having a feeling that if my pants were unbuttoned right now, my dick would be waving goodbye, as well. He was really excited.

"Bella is pretty, and I'm going to go have sex with her now. Bye!"

"WHOA! Wait!"

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"Please hurry," I begged, sucking on Edward's neck while taking little nibbles here and there. The keys to his... I mean, _our _beautiful Parisian apartment, our home for the next three weeks, were jingling loudly behind me. He was trying to unlock the door but my neck suckage and dick palmage were really distracting it seemed. He needed some encouragement if he was going to get the job done.

"Stick it in, Edward," I breathed as I licked the shell of his ear. He hissed through his teeth and tightened his squeeze on my ass, pulling me into him. What once was hard in my hand was now hard on my stomach, so I hooked my leg around his hip and ground myself into him, my own breath catching at the pleasure it sent rippling through me. "Stick it in the hole real good, baby. Slide it right on in."

"That's it," he growled exasperatedly. Giving up for the time being, he pushed me against the door with his body and attacked the inside of my mouth with his tongue.

We had been on edge since the airport as one person recognized us and then another. In the months since he'd officially announced his decision to retire from acting, interest in his every day life had been somewhat dwindling, but the interest had not fully gone away. Especially by his fans.

Surprisingly, Edward was now a hotter commodity to teenage girls and women of the world. The way he was committed to one woman and loved her devotedly 'died' them – their term not mine – anytime a new photo of this adoration of all things me showed up on the wire. Whether he was nuzzling my hair, kissing my lips or holding my hand, they dreamed of the day that he would do that to them.

It honestly didn't bother me. I mean it. They could dream all they wanted... but the boy was mine.

For it was _I _who made him forget where he was. It was _I_ who helped him get lost when we wanted to be. _I_ did this to him because _I_ was the one woman that he loved more than any other. And right now, _I _needed him inside of me.

"Inside," I whimpered desperately. Our unabashed frenzy escalated in the empty marble hallway smelling of home, and before I could speak it again, the door was unlocked in a loud rush, and I was in his arms being led through flashes of creams and browns and soft natural light.

My sights were only on the face of the beautiful man in front of me because I couldn't and wouldn't tear it away even for a second, but out of the corner of my eye I saw gilded mirrors, lush fabrics and exposed wooden beams that were probably original to the three hundred year old building.

Not surprisingly, the apartment held a fortune of character, similar to the sprawling city outside her windows. She begged to be explored, room by room, but she would have to wait. I was a little busy.

"Jesus, baby," Edward groaned in approval when I unzipped my floral skirt and let it float to the hardwoods around my feet, only to be stepped out of a second later in our stumble up the stairs to the second floor of the apartment. His shirt was gone next with a flourish, and then mine was gone, followed quickly by his pants and our shoes, but his mouth never seemed to leave mine the entire time, though it had to have.

I moaned and dropped my head back, finally breaking our kiss, trusting that he would keep our balance, when his hand slid up my ribs and pulled the cup of my nude lace bra down to reveal my breast. In reaction to my noises, Edward abruptly stopped our climb to press my back against the wall, and I melted into him when his teeth bit down gently on my nipple.

"Get inside of me," I gasped, threading my fingers through his hair to hold him where he was as his tongue swirled around the point, bringing me closer to exploding right then and there without even being touched.

"Take your panties off," he demanded as he switched his ministrations to the other nipple, almost tearing the fabric of my new honeymoon bra in his haste to unearth it. As the matching thong slid down my thighs, I wanted to tell him to take it easy on the bra – it was innocent fabric after all – but I couldn't formulate the words. Instead, my rapid breaths echoed up and down the stairwell mixing with the laps and sucks of his mouth down my heated flesh.

I couldn't control the shaking of my legs, and with every inch he got closer to their apex, I trembled more in anticipation. He knew what he was doing to me by dipping his tongue into my belly button, biting my hip bone and licking the inside of my thigh close enough to the slickness that waited for him that I could feel his warm breath.

I briefly contemplated how and when the power shifted, and though I really didn't give a damn that it had, I took it back by grabbing his head and shoving his face between my thighs. He wasted no time at all in giving into my silent demand, immediately sweeping his tongue over and around my clit before plunging it inside of me and groaning in eagerness.

Some kind of noise bubbled out of my throat at the intense experience of feeling my husband's mouth on me. How could it not? His tongue was twisting and lapping and pressing on every nerve that was singing his praises. Over and over again. Over... and over... and over... Swirling and rubbing and sucking. Oh God.

"Right there, baby," I mumbled incoherently. "Don't... stop..."

His eyes closed dreamily, like he was in heaven, and two of his fingers joined in, initially circling where his tongue was circling before entering inside of me and curling forward ever so slowly.

I couldn't take it. It was too much for my legs to handle to have to hold me up and let the waves crash over us at the same time. The waves were very large, and they were getting bigger with every motion of his fingers and tongue. They were one on top of the other, crashing and screaming on the shore.

So I dropped.

Edward gasped, frightened that I was falling down the stairs, but I wasn't. I was just gracefully falling into an easier position – spreadeagled above him a couple of steps – so that he could keep on licking me.

"Where do you think you're going?" he smiled mischievously, diving back in while keeping his eyes locked with mine.

I smiled and quirked an eyebrow. "I'm not going. I'm coming."

"Damn, right," he growled, using his strong hands to spread my thighs further. "Fuck, baby. You really want me."

"Yes," I moaned with a shiver. His fingers had trailed over the swollen bundle, sliding on both sides, rolling across and then down to where they entered inside of me again with more pressure than before. My head fell back with a thud, and I grabbed for the walls. "Yes... yes... yes..." I repeated breathlessly, feeling my orgasm rapidly building again in pace with his rhythm. "Right... right there..."

"Please come," he begged with a long lick. "I need to fuck this, and I need to fuck it now."

And that was all it took. The knot in my lower half unwound in an instant sending me soaring into a scream-filled arch of my back, but I had no chance to come down from the high. Before I could even take a much-needed breath, Edward had pulled my arms up around his neck and had slammed into me, dragging me up one step and then another with each pounding thrust, making sure his arms protected me from any pain that I was sure he was feeling instead, though you wouldn't have been able to tell by his face.

His expression was one of out of control love and lust. His mouth hung open. His eyes were squeezed shut. Sweat had formed all across his brow and pieces of hair stuck to the shimmer on his forehead. He was lost in us, not caring about the burn or the bruises. All he felt was me and how I wanted him. I needed to do the same and stop worrying.

Untying my hands from his shoulders, I assisted him until we were at the top of the stairs and were a tangle of arms and legs seeking purchase on slick skin.

"Jesus, Bella," he grunted. "This isn't going to last long."

I laughed a short burst and breathed back, "Won't need to," as I dug my nails into his ass and felt his muscles tighten and loosen with every push in and pull out. I was a live wire, never having gotten to calm down from orgasm number one, and the way he slid so forcefully inside of me sent sparks shooting in all directions.

The sounds of our sex didn't help much, either. Our skin slapped together in a cadence of me meeting his thrusts halfway, grinding up and into so that he got even deeper. I could feel the distinct ridge of the head of his dick rubbing all the right places so far inside, back and forth, pulling me toward my second release. He was so hard and so good. Whether making love or fucking, he knew how to play me. He knew how to get me screaming his name and pleading for more.

"Harder, Edward," I cried out.

Grabbing my face between his hands, he panted into my mouth between rough kisses and impossibly pounded into me at a more feverish pace.

"Harder," I cried out again.

"Fuck!" he growled, digging his fingers into my hips and ass so that he could pull me into his thrusts. I was being yanked up and toward him, my legs trying to hang on as he plunged inside over and over again, never relenting the slightest bit. His whole body was tensed, and I knew he was right there before he even spoke the words. "I'm gonna come, baby... Come for me, please... Fuck... Fuck!"

The coil had wound itself so painfully tight, that the simple passing of the word "come" from his lips did me in, and I was cursing and jerking below him as he pulsed inside of me and groaned just as explicitly through his climax.

"Oh fuck... Oh fuck... Oh god damn..."

"Don't... stop..." I whimpered, reveling in the waning pleasure with each small thrust he kept performing, surely striving to extend his own orgasm as much as mine. "That feels... so good..."

And it did. I was shaking all around him, still wound up and without oxygen but not caring. I knew he'd have to stop eventually, and judging by his miniscule pumps, eventually was sooner than I wanted, but this was nice. His chest was hard and sweaty against me. His hands were firm and protective on my hips. His breath was steadying and warm on my neck. His heart was slowing and always matched with mine.

For however long or short that time was, he'd gotten lost and forgotten about the airport and the cameras and screaming of his name. So had I, and it was perfect. I couldn't be blamed for not wanting it to end, but it did.

When the thrusting had stopped, he lifted his head from my chest and immediately started laughing, a hearty laugh, a carefree chuckle. I looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "What's so funny?"

He sighed and rolled, pulling me along so that I was laying on top of him. "Just thinking about what a romantic I am," he replied.

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.

He sat up, wrapping my legs around his naked waist, and kissed the tip of my nose. "Aren't honeymoons supposed to be rose petals, bottles of champagne and making love on a fluffy bed?"

"For some, yes," I answered, understanding where he was going with this. "Sounds like a lovely honeymoon, but it appears that honeymoons for us are fucking in an airplane bathroom, almost being arrested and getting down to business on the floor before we even make it to that fluffy bed. I happen to think that's much more fun."

"Me, too," he snickered, but that snicker didn't last long. With one swivel of my hips, he took in a sharp breath and grabbed my ass again possessively with an all-knowing smirk on his face. "You are insatiable."

"Is that a problem?"

"Definitely _not_, Mrs. Cullen," he repeated from earlier.

"Say that again," I whimpered, lifting my center off of his once again hardened dick while he positioned the tip at my entrance, circling the head in what he created.

His free hand came up and wrapped around the back of my neck, and with a gentle pull, he brought my ear to his mouth – a wet and hot and wanting mouth. It was a whisper. Secret and private. Enticing and seductive. And so fucking hot. "Fuck me, Mrs. Cullen."

"Oh God," I moaned, long and loud, feeling every inch of him slam into me with a strength that knocked the air out of my lungs.

It was official.

He 'died' me, too.

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"See! I told you you wouldn't die!"

"We haven't landed, yet, Emmett! There's still time!"

"We're ten feet above the ground! Stop acting like a girl!"

"I don't want to die on my wedding day!"

"As long as you don't jump out that door and let the helicopter land on you, you won't, you pussy!"

"I'm not a pussy!"

"Bella handled this better than you! She has a pussy but she sure as hell didn't act like one!"

"Don't you dare talk about my wife's pussy!"

"She's not your wife, yet!"

"She will be in an hour!"

"I don't think we have to yell anymore!"

"You're probably right!"

Pulling the headsets off of our ears, Emmett and I handed them forward to the wide-eyed, slack-jawed pilot that had turned in his seat waiting for us to stop talking about my future wife's woman parts so that he could tell us we'd touched down.

Emmett was smiling a huge toothy grin, not at all embarrassed, the complete opposite of me. "Thanks for the flight, Phil! Fun as always."

Phil and my brother went way back. They had been out in the helicopter over a year ago scouting locations in this very area for the movie I filmed that changed both of our lives forever. Emmett put that life change on fast forward, speeding through his courtship of Rosalie straight into marriage only a few short hours after meeting. Mine was fast, too, in comparison to other relationships, but it drew less questioning looks.

Stepping both feet onto the ground, I picked a familiar purple wildflower and sighed. I was marrying my Bella today... one year after meeting her... one year after falling in love.

And we were getting married in the most beautiful place I'd ever seen.

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"What do you see?" I asked, stepping to the side.

Edward took a deep breath and stared down at his feet. "Point Zero."

"Right," I agreed. "The point from where all distances in France are measured." It was a round plaque of sorts, in the ground and easily found because it was in one of the busiest squares in all of Paris. He wanted to be shown _my_ Paris, experience it the way that I saw it, and this was only our first stop. "What else do you see?"

He looked up at an almost uncomfortable angle and stretched out his arms in awe at the magnificent stone building erected before us. "Notre Dame Cathedral."

"Yes, it's sort of hard to miss," I laughed. "What else?"

Edward spun around and started pointing things out with his finger. "A tour bus, a corner cafe with a creperie out front, the square we're standing in, a statue of a man on a horse, and our apartment building across the river."

"Very good," I smiled. "So, what do you see?"

Turning back to me, his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. He was perplexed, but I expected him to be. He had just pointed out the things that he saw, but was he really looking?

"That's _your_ Paris, Edward," I explained. "That's her Paris and his Paris, too." I motioned to the two people rushing by with their eyes occupied by their travel books and not in their incredible surroundings. "Now, what do you think _I_ see?"

He took my hand in his and stood at my side for a few long moments. His eyes wandered, searching for the hidden secrets that I loved about this city, unsure of what I was trying to get him to do, but then a small smile played with the corner of his mouth.

"The school group wearing the matching blue backpacks standing in line to go inside Notre Dame."

"What about it?" I asked, looking to see them, too. They were a large group, probably close to fifty in size, wearing shorts, printed t-shirts and tennis shoes. American students and chaperones, I concluded in an instant, with a sense of pride and also a little embarrassment. We were so easy to spot sometimes.

"The boy at the very back of the line," Edward directed. "He kissed the young girl next to him on the cheek, and her smile reminded me of the way you smile at me. I think she just realized that she loved him."

Following his finger, I found the two kids no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, and I sighed because I saw it, too, not only in her smile but in the way she looked at him. "They'll remember that moment for the rest of their lives, regardless if they stay together or not, don't you think?"

"Neither of them will want to forget the way they felt," he whispered, kissing my knuckles.

"What else?" I went on, trying to hold back the little tear that wanted to leave my eye at the way I never wanted to forget this moment.

"The child in the stroller over there realizes that what she sees in front of her is something special, but she's too young to know what it is, and her parents aren't even noticing the wonder in her eyes because they are too busy looking up and not down at the beautiful thing that is their daughter learning that this world is much bigger and much more amazing than she ever knew."

The lump in my throat tripled in size as I stared over at the gorgeous little girl and her big blue eyes. I didn't know the family's nationality or what language they spoke, but the look on her face was universal. Edward was right. Amazing didn't even begin to describe what this world had to offer our senses. This may have been her first awakening to what was outside her crib, but the wonder never stopped hitting you when you least expected it.

My breath caught as he spun me around and molded his lips to mine, oblivious of the bustling people walking within inches of our touching bodies.

Edward was my wonder.

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All was silent.

There was no music.

There was no talking.

There was no breathing or heart beating.

There wasn't even a breeze.

The wildflowers stood still, in awe of the woman they watched grow up, walking next to her father in a gorgeous white gown down the makeshift aisle that stretched out from under my feet. The sun glinted off her skin like prisms and lit up the painted canvases circling our small group of closest friends and family, and every single pair of eyes were on her, even Charlie's tear-filled eyes as he held her hand in the crook of his elbow. He didn't want to miss a second of his daughter's happiness.

She was busting at the seams with emotion. I could tell she didn't know if she should cry, squeal or run to my arms. She probably would have done all three at once if her dad didn't have her locked to his side.

You see, Bella was marrying her Edward today... one year after meeting him, one year after falling in love.

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"I think I'm in love," I whimpered in heavenly delight, licking the spoon of every creamy morsel of Le Vin Sobre's crème brulee that was left behind.

"Have I been replaced?" Edward asked, inserting a mouthful from his own dish because I refused to share mine.

Sighing, I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder. "Ce n'est pas possible."

He snickered at the random French that I'd thrown into the conversation. I'd been doing that a lot in the hopes of stumping him. I still had not been successful. "Good thing it's not possible, though I'd have fought the crème brulee until I got you back."

"And I'd have licked you clean," I hummed, closing my eyes.

It was getting late. The sun had gone down hours ago, and the Paris lights had come alive in the meantime, the same lights that gave the city its title. Glowing street lamps and windows illuminated the damp cobblestone and concrete below. The short bout of evening rain had driven most people indoors, but even so, in a city this large, there was always a peacefulness, especially at night.

Across the corner, a lone musician sitting on his accordion case lulled me toward sleep with his version of "La Vie En Rose" much to the joy of the four tourists standing around him. His song selection veered toward stereotypical Paris to please his audience, but it didn't much matter to me what he played. I could have stayed there all day at what we'd begun to call 'our cafe' and listened to the same song over and over again. It was something I would miss when these three weeks were up.

"I can't believe our honeymoon is already halfway over," I whispered.

"Hey," he murmured quietly against my hair, wrapping his arm around my shoulder to bring me closer. "Don't get sad on me. This trip is special because we're here together, not because it's our honeymoon. There are countless trips just like this one ahead of us. Think of it as one day closer to our next adventure."

"Do you promise they'll all be like this?" I asked, sniffling. "Loving and holding and just being?"

Without a pause, he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the diamonds that he'd placed on my ring finger. "It's my vow, Bella."

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Fresh tears hung heavy in her eyes, threatening to slide down her pinked cheeks as she stared up at me. I wanted to wipe them away, but she wouldn't let go of my hands. She was shaking with what she had to say and needed my hands in hers more than anywhere else.

"Though it is hard to imagine right now on this perfect day, you and I both know this meadow doesn't always look this beautiful. It's not always purple and green, and the sky above isn't always blue and cloudless. Sometimes the vibrancy is... gone..."

I squeezed her hands, telling her I was there. I could tell she was struggling to get through her vows.

"We've both seen it. We've seen the yellowed grass and the gray skies. We've felt the emptiness of something that seems so dead. But you never gave up trying to find the life.

"That first day I brought you here, I didn't know what to expect. This meadow was my secret. I held so many secrets, but this one was special. It was mine and hers, a place I never planned on showing anybody else. But there I was, leading you through the forest toward an unknown.

"It had been years since I stepped through the ferns into this circle, and never once had I seen it so lifeless than that day. I cried in your arms, feeling my losses more deeply than I had in the longest time. But you pulled me out of it. You found the life. You dug until you unearthed it, but there it was. It was deep below the grass that had died, but as bright green as it could possibly be, new life grew underneath...

"I'm the meadow," she whispered. "Most times I'm happy and so alive, but sometimes death creeps in. You always find the life inside of me, though. I don't know how you do it but I think I know why."

Her head turned slightly and she looked out over our loved ones. Three rows of seats on each side concluded our gathering. This was about us and those that cared the most. My parents and Charlie took up the front row, and our friends took the second. And in the back row, Billy sat by himself, beaming with pride.

"My one wish for this wedding out here was to have my mother's paintings surrounding all of us in a circle not unlike the meadow itself. I feel her here with me this way. They freeze this masterpiece of nature at its most beautiful.

"We were to come out here and finish the last painting in the set one sunny morning. We never got to do that, though, because she died the night before, and these canvases have hung on my wall with an empty space where that final one would have gone if she'd have gotten the chance to paint it."

Turning back to me, she smiled sadly. "You told me that though the paintings were incomplete, they were still beautiful. They were still cherished and loved and something to be proud of, and they are... _just_ as they are."

We both looked at the front of our altar to the empty space where a final painting would have gone if it had been done.

"You wanted me to complete them, to fill that one last hole, but it can't be filled. I'm not only the meadow, I am these paintings. A part of me will always be missing no matter how I try to fill it. But I've learned that's okay because you love me just the way I am. That part of me that's missing? It's grown smaller since I met you.

"Though it is hard to imagine right now on this perfect day, you and I both know life doesn't always look this beautiful. But with you, the happy outnumbers the sad, and the blue outnumbers the gray, and that's how I know I can stand here and promise to love you forever. That is the only way I know how to live and the only way I choose. I love you, Edward Anthony Cullen. I'll love you forever, every day of forever."

A strangled laugh escaped her throat through her huge smile with the conclusion of her loving speech, and I wiped a tear from my own face as I took her wedding ring from Emmett's hand. I couldn't believe this was it. The love of my existence was marrying me.

"Do you, Edward, take Bella to be your lawfully wedded wife?" the minister asked.

"I do," I spoke loudly and excitedly with a finality that could not be shaken as the ring slid over her skin and fell into the place it would always stay.

"Do you, Bella, take Edward to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"Yes! Yes! I do!" she nearly squealed. The platinum band, warmed from her hand easily glided over my knuckles and came to a stop, and then our eyes met.

I don't think either of us were sure what the preacher said after that, but it didn't matter. "You may kiss the bride" was always next in the movies, and I was a former movie star, after all. So with one final smile, I took her face in my hands and kissed my bride.

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"What do _you_ see, Mrs. Cullen?"

She was in my arms on a quiet bridge over the Seine with the sparkling Eiffel Tower reflecting in the midnight water. It was our last night in Paris, a night I planned on making unforgettable.

"I see us old and gray, sitting on the porch with our grandchildren playing in the yard... I see your hand holding mine... We're happy."

"I see it, too," I whispered into her ear. "And it's beautiful."

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**AUTHOR'S END NOTE: **

**Bella's wedding dress/portrait can be found on my profile as well as the Paris apartment. Thank you to reader katladie81, a dear friend on Twitter, for volunteering to help me pick the apartment. It was a tough job to get that horrible horrible glimpse of what was ahead, I know! :)  
**

Okay, only one more epilogue left. I could have left it here. Actually, after writing that last line, I wanted to leave it here, but there are clues still laid within the story for what happens in Epilogue 2. So the show must go on! I promise to leave it just as sweetly and poignantly. I couldn't post it without that. I've got big big plans.

**I wrote a one shot!** It's called Department Store White Dress and can be found in my profile. Go check it out!

**Also, I'm planning a new story! **I've put up a link to the preview in my profile. It's called "I Love You More" and it's going to be a little different for me and from this story. I'm stepping outside the box, but it's going to be incredibly fun. Go check it out and leave a comment on the teaser to tell me what you think!

_**If you leave me a review, you'll get an exclusive teaser that won't show up on Twitter.** Make sure you have private messages enabled.  
_

**Check my profile for when I'll be updating the final time!**


	34. Epilogue 2

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Thanks to all of you that have reviewed or put it in favorites or alerts. I'm humbled

Rated M: angst, **language**, violence, lemons

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**IMPORTANT**

*tears up* This is it. The final chapter/epilogue of this story. I...I can't do this yet. I'll see you at the bottom.

**

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Epilogue 2**

Alice's head popped up, her expression wild-eyed and full of mischief as if she had done something she wasn't supposed to. "I just saw your vagina again."

"Oh, for the love of God," I groaned.

"I can't look away," she breathed. "It's like it's saying, 'Helloooo, look at me. I'm a vagina, and I'm just hanging out.'"

"That's because it _is_ just hanging out, bitch!" I growled, snapping my disgustingly sweaty head up from the pillow to glare at her. "Three times, Alice. Three times I've been in the delivery room with you and never once did I make fun of your vagina nor did I try to take its picture with my cell ph– oh, Jesus."

Two hands, one smaller and one larger than mine, tightened their squeeze of my fierce death grips, as an overwhelming, mind-numbing urge took over my body before I could complete my thought. I couldn't stop or delay the urge no matter how hard I tried. At this point, though, the last thing I wanted to do was delay it any longer. So, chin down against my chest, sock-clad feet pressed firmly into stirrups and vagina hanging out for everybody to see... I pushed.

"That's it, Bella," Rosalie spoke calmly, between my thighs. "Just like that. You're doing wonderfully, honey. I can feel the head."

Edward was next to give semi-encouragement as the blood rushed to my shaking face and a screaming pain ripped through my lower half. "You're doing so good, baby. Jesus Christ. How the fuck do women do this all the time?"

"Not... helping... asshole." It was a grunt through my clenched teeth and the last thing I said before I threw myself back into the pillow and gasped for the oxygen I desperately needed to fill my lungs again.

Next to my head, Alice bent over and placed her elbow on the pillow to stare into my eyes. "You get angry when you give birth." My hand moved to smack her upside the head, but Edward tightened his hold, keeping it at my side.

"Alice," Rosalie warned. "Back off of Bella or the next time you come in for an internal, I'll make sure I use the metal speculum, and I'll make sure it's extra cold."

"You wouldn't," she whispered, clamping her thighs together.

"Your behavior the rest of the delivery determines if all of the plastic ones disappear that day or not."

A small whimper escaped her lips just as another contraction hit me. My instinct, even without all of the classes and books and preparation, told me to bear down and put every amount of pressure I could toward my center in hopes that it would help. Help to push my baby out. Help to relieve the pain. Help to make this go faster. Anything for this to be over.

Because I was exhausted. I had gone into labor twenty four hours ago, and I hadn't slept once since my water broke in the middle of the night. And here I was, in the middle of the night again, still in pain... still waiting for that moment I had envisioned thirty three weeks ago when I handed three positive pregnancy tests to Edward as soon as he walked in the front door. I had been terrified up until that moment. He wasn't done with school, and it wasn't planned, but then I saw his face as what he held registered. _His face. _So beautiful. And so excited. He saw my vision, too.

Would it ever come?

A lazy tear dropped from my eye and a dragging, noisy rush of air sucked into my lungs as I broke my push and slammed back into the pillow again. Edward's strained face appeared next to mine almost immediately to brush away the moisture from my face.

"I love you," he whispered only for me. His voice cracked the slightest bit, and I knew his facade of strength and support was slipping away with every passing second because seconds were all I had in between contractions. They rode in waves. One after the other. Tearing me apart. Never stopping. Never letting up. Growing stronger and stronger.

"Come on, Bella," Rosalie said a little more forcefully as another wave hit. "Give me a big push."

More tears fell from the pain and the exhaustion, and I leaned forward with my husband's and my friend's hands still in mine. A gurgled scream ripped through my clenched teeth as I found a reserve of strength buried deep inside.

"Go! Go! Go!"

"Push, Bella! Push!"

"Keep pushing!"

The muffled yells were coming from all around, but I couldn't tell who was shouting what. I couldn't tell because my own mind was shouting louder. An unimaginable amount of strain and pressure was going on down there, more than before, and I knew this was it. I'd heard about this and read about it, but experiencing it was something different all together.

This was the dreaded, terrifying "ring of fire" when the widest part of the head was passing.

I was stretched to the hilt, and all I could think was to stop. Stop pushing. Stop stretching. Stop everything.

"Push it back in!" I screamed.

"Can't do that," Rosalie said a little louder than usual. "But one more push and your baby's head will be out and the hard part is over... for now."

"Promise?" I cried.

"Pinky," she winked. "I'd give you my pinky, but it's currently stuck in your vagina helping stretch you around this little one's head, so get pushing already!"

"Okay," I whimpered with a shake of my head. Inclining forward, I did as I'd done for over an hour. I pushed again.

Everything happened quickly then with my last gulp and hold of air. The burn, a burn that had been unbearable only seconds before, all but disappeared within seconds and Rosalie was on her feet gently but forcefully pulling something from my body.

And that's when time decided to stop. Just as I felt the last tiny foot leave and just as I heard the first cry of a newborn.

"It's a boy!"

My eyes opened, blurred from tears and sweat and bloodshot unlike ever before, and they fell upon the squirming little boy held up in front of me. He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my entire life. Pink and splotchy. Full head of hair and covered in fluids. Screaming and toothless. Ten long fingers and ten long toes. Tiny and perfect.

_Mine. All mine._

My hand reached out to touch him, and he was gone, whisked away from the bright lights of the operating table toward a huddle of nurses standing ready at a warming bed too far away from me.

Edward grabbed my face as more tears fell and held it between his shaking hands as his eyes darted back and forth between mine like he was searching for the right words to come out of his trembling lips. He was just as in shock as I was. "I have a son," he whispered. "Oh my God. I'm a daddy."

_Holy shit. _"I'm a– "

Without any warning, a cold liquid squirted onto my skin, and a sonogram wand pressed into my largely protruding belly on the underneath side of the external belt monitor. My wet eyes shot to Rosalie next to the bed as she referenced the screen the image was showing on as she moved the wand around and then they fell back over to my son on the other side of the room.

He was crying. Why was he crying? Were they hurting him? Was he cold? Was everything okay? And then my heart dropped when I realized what was wrong.

He was alone for the first time since he'd been conceived. I could hear it in his tiny voice. As his mother, I could already tell, and I'd just met him.

He was missing his other half.

"Alice?" I whimpered.

"I thought you'd never ask," she squealed, and just like that, she was sprinting across the room, toward my child crying for his twin.

"Her head is still down," Rosalie said gently, taking my weakened hand in hers. "You've had an amazing pregnancy, and you carried these babies to term with no complications. She's healthy enough for you to push her out. We don't need to surgically intervene. So let's do this, okay? I've been waiting to meet her."

Tears welled up in my eyes again as she took her place back at the foot of the hospital bed and shook her head for me to start pushing when I was ready.

My heart was in two places at once as my torso angled forward with Edward's arm around my back. It was here on the table with the baby still inside of me, waiting for me to help her come out, and it was across the room with the baby that my friend was fawning over.

My eyes stayed locked on his teeny body and long, thin arms flailing as the nurses tended to him. They stayed on him with every push. They stayed on him with every scream. They never broke once. I couldn't take my eyes off the prize or else I'd give up. I was so tired.

"Come on, Bella. Push harder."

"I can't!" I screamed through the downpour of tears, feeling my determination slipping away as the pressure and the fire built again.

Edward's lips fell to the side of my head as I gasped for air, and he spoke in a tone that I knew was full of love though it was stern. "Yes you can, Bella. You are the bravest, strongest person I've ever known. You can do anything. I've witnessed it... Do it for her. Our daughter needs you to push harder."

The ache in my chest grew, and I leaned forward again in preparation to be the woman I knew I could be – the strong woman I had always been – because of the strong woman that raised me. In my heart, I knew she was with me, standing right next to me, holding my hand. She never would have wanted to miss this.

I felt everything as my daughter moved toward leaving the body that had been her shelter and home for her very short but significant life. I heard the distant sounds of Rosalie and Edward and even Alice shouting to keep pushing, and I felt her head and her shoulders, but then it went completely silent in one instant – completely silent except for the sounds of _her_ cries and _his_ cries... and _my_ cries.

My daughter and my son.

They were both here.

And they were both together again.

* * *

"They look like you."

"No, they look like you."

"You're delirious from the exhaustion of giving birth to two babies. They look like you."

"This could go on all day. How about we compromise and say he looks like you and she looks like me?"

"If you must," he sighed, looking down at our daughter swaddled snuggly on his chest in her pink blanket courtesy of Esme. It matched the blue blanket wrapped around our son, who slept soundly on mine. We all laid together in the same hospital bed, him next to me, both of us holding the most important things to us. It brought back many memories from our early time together.

How things had changed over the years. How_ life_ had changed.

Our adoration of these gifts were no louder than a whisper in the quiet private room, just down the hall from the nursery. Across from the nursery, a waiting room sat full of impatient people we called family. I knew this because I'd been in there in the past, waiting just as impatiently for the news about my friends. Now that I was on the other side of the door, I understood why it took so long to get to go in every time.

This was nice. Just our little family getting to know each other before the advice and help came from all sides. I knew we'd need the help eventually, but they were sleeping. I could handle sleeping.

A soft knock – soft enough to not wake the handsome little man under my protective hands – proceeded a slow opening of the door, and Rosalie walked in.

"How are you feeling?" she asked quietly, barely hiding her excitement.

"Better than I expected," I replied. "I'm tired, but I don't want to go to sleep, yet. I'm prepping my body for the lack of sleep I'm going to get in the coming months."

"You need to sleep, Bella. Your body has been through a lot. Don't deny it something it needs. We need you healthy so you can take care of these adorable babies."

"I know, Dr. Hale-Cullen," I smiled. "After the family visits them I'll sleep."

"I can send them in if you're ready. You up for that, yet?"

I turned to Edward and he kissed me on the tip of my nose, knowing exactly the thoughts that were running through my head even though they were thoughts I'd never had before. This was all so new. "We'll have more moments like these with them. I promise you. We'll make time for the moments."

"They probably want to meet them, don't they?" I whispered.

"I'm sure my mom is about to bust down the door. Your dad is probably helping her."

I snorted in laughter at the vision, forgetting for a split second about the snoozing boy on me, and I froze all movement and sound, though it didn't really matter. As soon as everybody came in, they would both be woken from their innocent little dreams.

I wasn't wrong.

First in the door was my dad who looked like he won a sprinting match down the hallway against Esme. She came through the door only a second later, with her hand over her mouth either to quiet her panting from running or to keep the squeal in. Carlisle, Emmett, Rosalie, Alice and Jasper were right behind her, followed by Angela and Ben bringing up the rear.

They all barely fit in the room, but I doubted any of them were willing to leave from the looks on their faces. Babies had been born in this group, but never twins. Alice and Jasper had their three, two boys and a girl. Angela and Ben had welcomed a daughter last year. And Rosalie and Emmett had five children now. Three boys and two girls. All of them looked different, all had different personalities, all had been born in different parts of the country, but they were all loved equally. Rosalie didn't need to give birth to be a mother. All she had to do was lay eyes on them, and they were hers. She was a wonderful mother, and Emmett was truly a papa bear.

"When did my boys grow up to be daddies?" Esme sniffled, giving Edward a kiss on the cheek.

Her hands hovered and shook, only inches above our daughter, and I knew she was doing everything in her power not to grab her from his arms, so I asked, "Do you want to hold her?" Without even an answer, she was lifting her off of him with a care only a skilled mother could know.

"Oh my," she whimpered, placing her against her chest up by her shoulder. She swayed smoothly from side to side, rubbing her back lightly as she studied her tiny face. "She looks like you, Edward."

"Told you," I whispered to nobody in particular.

A small throat clearing next to me made me turn my head to see my dad standing next to the bed. "Can I hold him?" He pointed at my son like I didn't know who he was talking about, but I only smiled. He was nervous and excited and scared all at the same time. This was just as new to him as it was to us. It had been a long time since he'd held a baby. It might have been me.

Leaning forward, I cradled the little bundle in my hands and passed him to my dad's waiting arms. He held his grandson less comfortably than Esme was holding her granddaughter, and it took no time for him to start whimpering and squeaking.

I went to take him back, the mothering instinct already kicking in, and dad spun away from me. "Give me a minute," he huffed. "I got you to stop crying more than your mother did when you were a baby. I just need to find out what this little man likes." My hands withdrew, and I watched as he sat down in the rocking chair against the wall.

For as many people there were in the room, it was as quiet as it could be as we listened to them breathing. It was peaceful. It was perfect. This life was so good. It was beautiful.

"What are their names?" Angela finally asked quietly.

I looked toward my father and my son, Alice, Carlisle, Esme and my daughter, and a tear streaked down my cheek. We had never told them the names before because of what they meant to all of us. The names were in memory and in honor of those we loved the most.

"Mary Renee," I said, pausing for Alice and Esme's gasps as they realized what we'd done, "and Anthony–"

"Charles," Edward interrupted, taking me by surprise. "Mary Renee and Anthony Charles."

My head snapped around. It was always going to be Anthony Carlisle. What was he doing?

He took my hand in his and squeezed. "Five years ago today, your father saved your life in the bookstore," he sniffled. "Without him, you wouldn't be here, and neither would they. I want to honor your father for giving me you and for giving me them."

An uncontrollable sob bubbled up from my throat, and a sniffle from across the room made us all turn our watery attention to my father in the rocking chair touching his grandchild's face with the tip of his finger. He swallowed hard and looked up at us and blinked away the tears as best as he could only to have them drop from his eyes anyways. "Five years ago today, I almost had nobody," he croaked. "But now I have four somebodies. I love my somebodies. I love you all very much. Thank you for giving me this."

.

.

.

.

.

_Twelve weeks later..._

Silence filled the darkened bedroom. Too much silence. Something wasn't right. I shot straight up in bed and grabbed the baby monitor without even having to think another second about what was wrong with this situation. Why couldn't I hear them breathing in their sleep?

My hand immediately went to Edward to shake him awake at the same rapid rhythm of my racing heart, but all my hand met was cold sheet, and a sense of calm washed over me. He was up. He was most likely with them. I could relax.

Okay, no I couldn't.

One thing I'd learned about parenting is the worry never stops. The minute you let your guard down, something happens, and though there had been very few happenings being that they were only twelve weeks old, I knew what was in store for my nerves in the coming years. Just the same as the sleep deprivation, I was preparing my nerves for what was to come. I was getting them good and worn, broken in, so to speak.

A dim light shone under the nursery room door down the hall from our bedroom as I made my way toward it along the well-traveled carpet. The door was shut, but with a quiet turn of the knob, I opened it just a hair to peek inside.

There Edward sat in the rocking chair, Anthony in his left arm and Mary in his right, singing them their lullaby. He looked tired. He _always_ looked tired. Stress from his advanced counseling course load at school and taking care of the babies and finding time for us and himself was wearing on him, but he never complained. I don't think he could have complained even if he wanted to.

Every day he made sure that I knew that he had everything he ever wanted. A wife he loved unconditionally. Two children he would give his life for. A life that truly made him happy. He needed nothing more than us waiting for him when he got home, and because we loved him, we were always there.

His lullaby slowly came to an end, and I watched as he sweetly kissed them both on the head, careful not to wake them up. I expected him to stand so that they could go back in the crib, but he rested back into the chair and rocked some more, closing his eyes as he did. "You make me happy," he whispered dreamily. "I deal with sadness and grief every day at school. These patients I study are so beaten down. They feel they have nothing left but sadness. I'm reminded of a time when that was all there seemed to be. But then I see your faces when I walk in the door, and I forget all about it. You're so beautiful, and your laugh is so contagious. I'm happier than I ever thought I could be. You are my life and my loves. For you, I would do anything... absolutely anything. I love you, my sweet Mary. I love you, my precious Anthony."

Then his eyes opened and met mine in the doorway.

"I love you, my beautiful Bella."

Silent tears poured down my face from his words. The day he came back to me was the first day of our lives, lives full of laughter and happiness... lives simply full. We loved each other like every day was our last, but never afraid if it was. We'd spent too long afraid of one thing or another. It wasn't worth it. Not when you had a love like ours that could survive anything.

He wordlessly took my hand as he walked out of the nursery and led me back toward the bedroom where he stripped the nightgown off of my body. He was slow and timid as it was our first time since the babies had been born, but he was still familiar. His warm fingerprints were burned into my skin and into my heart, never to be forgotten, and the feel of him moving inside of me was electric. _Always_ electric.

Our whispers of love and worship filtered out of the bedroom and floated down the hall into the room where our babies slept... and they swooped down the stairs into the living room and swirled around the frames on the bookshelves showing our happiest moments... and they entered an open door into a room once hidden, once private and sacred to me and only me, where they got caught up in the breeze blowing through the wildflowers of a set of paintings... and in the breeze through the wildflowers of a new family portrait... a family portrait that perfectly filled a space on the wall that used to be empty.

.

.

.

I wasn't so incomplete after all.

**

* * *

AUTHOR'S FINAL END NOTE: **

Seriously crying right now.

Goodness, what a ride this has been. I posted this story almost a year ago from today, and this is truly a bittersweet moment for me. Thank you to everybody that has opened this story and read, and thank you to those that have tirelessly rec'd this story and made videos and banners. Also, thank you for sticking with me when this story got tough to read. I swear it was just as hard to write. My heart was breaking just like yours. I'm happy I could give you your HEA.

I've grown as a writer and have found that this is a passion of mine. It was never a passion before I read Twilight and discovered fanfic. But wow! Writing this story has led me to meet some of the most amazing people in this world. You all know who you are. Some of you I've actually driven seven hours to meet and others I plan on meeting for the first time in eleven months in Seattle as you fly in from other countries. Some of you I will never meet past texts and tweets and private messages, but that's okay. We have a bond. We're a family. And for that, I'm eternally grateful. Thank you all for reaching out through the computer. My life is forever changed.

For those of you thinking about writing a fanfic, do it. Sit down at your computer and challenge yourself to see what you can do. It could end up being one of the most rewarding things you ever do. I promise.

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you back for my other stories!

**I wrote a one shot!** It's called Department Store White Dress and can be found in my profile. Go check it out!

**NEW O/S and STORY ALERT **Be watching for a o/s coming soon, but I've also put up a link to the preview of my new story in my profile. It's called "I Love You More". Go check it out and leave a comment on the teaser to tell me what you think! I'll begin posting chapters after I get several of them written.


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